Book ^ll:\jo 

Copyright 

eOIWIGHT BEPOSir. 



THE 

Motherhood of God 



A SERIES OF DISCOURSES 




Louis Albert Banks, D. D., 

AUTHOR OF 

"Christ and His Friends," "The Heavenly Trade- Winds," 
"The Lord's Arrows," Etc, 




CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE 
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

WAY. 1 1901 

Copyright entry 
( CLASS <^XXc. N«. 
COPY B, 



COPYRIGHT, I901, BY 
THE WESTERN METH- 
ODIST BOOK CONCERN 



Contents 

Page. 

I. The Motherhood of God, 9 

II. Christ's ''Do n't Worry Club," ... 17 

III. The Best Wealth Open for All, . . . 25 

IV. The Palmistry of the Saints, • • • • 35 
V. The Recognition of Friends in Heaven, . 44 

VI. The Recognition of Friends on Earth, . 52 

VII. Mutual Dependence of Humanity, ... 60 

VIII. The Beauty and Glory of Helpfulness, . 67 

IX. A Reasonable Religion, 77 

X. The Perils of Egotism, 86 

XI. The Harness of Life, 96 

XII. The Strands of Heaven's Cable, . . . 107 

XIII. The Face of Jesus Christ, 116 

XIV. The Mirage OF To-morrow, 124 

XV. The God-speeds ' ' and W elcomes of Life, 132 

XVI. The Romance of Christianity, . . . .140 
XVII. Meshullam, the Boarding-house Roomer 

WHO Did his Duty, 149 

XVIII. The High-noon of Human Life, . . .159 

5 



6 Contents 

Page. 

XIX. The Coin that Rings True, 167 

XX. The Three Greatest Signal-lights in 

History, 175 

XXI. Laying Hold of the Life-line, . . . .184 
XXII. The Personal Vision of Christ, . . .193 
XXIIL My Neighbor's Duty and My Own, . .202 

XXIV. The King's Jewels, 210 

XXV. The Conquest of Our Faults, . . . .219 
XXVI. Renewing the Youth of the Soul, . .228 
XXVII. The Tug at the Oars, 238 



Motherhood of God 



I 



The Motherhood of God 

'*As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." — 
Isaiah lxvi, 13. 

God could come no nearer to us that. To 
compare himself to a mother dandling her child upon 
her knee, soothing it in time of sorrow, rejoicing it 
with the consciousness of her love, is the very bright- 
est illustration of gracious tenderness to which we 
are susceptible. And that tender illustration may be 
taken home to every heart that turns to the Lord 
with loving obedience. The only aristocracy of 
heaven is the aristocracy of the family. Let us study 
God's motherhood for a few mometits. 

We have, first, a suggestion in it of our individ- 
uality. A mother individualizes her children. I have 
seen in a family twins so near alike in the color of 
the hair and eyes, in the formation of the features, 
and in every way, that no stranger could tell them 
apart, and sometimes even brothers and sisters were 
unable to distinguish them at first glance. But the 
mother knew the difference. They were distinct and 
individual to her. There may be a large family, but 
not one is lost in the crowd to the mother's thought- 
ful tenderness. Each one has his or her separate 

9 



lO 



The Motherhood of God 



place in that warm heart. So it is that God thinks of 
us; Christ assures us that we are never lost in the 
multitude so that God does not think about us per- 
sonally. He emphasizes this individual thoughtful- 
ness of God by the declaration that even the very 
hairs of our head are all numbered, and says that 
though we might be so small and humble as to be 
compared to an odd sparrow that is thrown in with 
the job lot on the market-man's table, still we are not 
forgotten by our Heavenly Father. 

Surely the world seems like a different place when 
one gets to know and feel that this is true. It is no 
longer so lonely, for it is God's world, and he is our 
Father. A great many people who believe in God 
in a way, believe only in his head of wisdom and his 
arm of power. They have not grasped the thought 
of his tenderness of feeling and gentleness of care. 
They see God in the great storm that devastates the 
forest and destroys ships on the sea; they can see 
God in mighty movements of nations and civiliza- 
tions ; they can see him in the tendency of the ages ; 
but the conception of the Divine heart, of the God 
who cares for his children one by one, has not yet 
possessed them. 

One of the most successful Indian missions ever 
estabUshed in this country is in British Columbia, at 
Metlahkatla. It was established by a Mr. Duncan, 
who went into that region among these Indians to 
begin his work in 1857. But he did not know the 
language, and concluded that he would not under- 
take to preach at all until he had learned it. So he 
devoted all his powers and all his time for eight 



The Motherhood of God 



11 



months to studying the language of these people he 
wanted to win to Christ. The Indians were greatly 
puzzled as to what he wanted. They thought there' 
must be something more than simply a white man's 
curiosity in this determination to acquire the art of 
speaking the miserable jargon in which they talked. 
But though he' did not preach by the spoken word, 
his just and kind and gentle Christian conduct was 
preaching all the time. Finally, the curiosity among 
the Indians became so great that the head chief went 
to Mr. Duncan one day and asked him, "Have you a 
letter from God?" "Well, yes," said Mr. Duncan, "I 
have God's Word." "Have you come to tell us God's 
heart?" "Yes," said Duncan. And thus it was that 
God opened the hearts of those people to hear the 
message from his own heart which has transformed 
them from heathen savages to happy, intelligent 
Christian men and women. 

It is with the same purpose that I come to you 
with this message. My text is a message from God's 
heart. "As one whom his mother comforteth," so 
God seeks to comfort you. What a wealth of over- 
flowing love the figure suggests ! Mark Guy Pearse 
says that in all his dealings with us God delights to 
bless us overflowingly. He is never stingy with us. 
He who is love can not be content with giving us 
bread and clothes and light and air. As a mother 
fitting up the child to go away on a journey, puts in 
a great many things not absolutely necessary, but 
just overflowing prodigality for her child, so God 
puts a thousand things into this world that are not 
merely necessary, but are the glad indulgence of his 



12 



The Motherhood of God 



love for us. The stars must look down heaven's 
kindliness upon us. The flowers must brighten us 
with their beauty, and sweeten the earth with fra- 
grance. The birds must bring their song. Our neces- 
sities, measured and exact, can never satisfy our 
God. He must give us music, and laughter, and the 
joy of little children, and the brightness of home and 
friendship. Man can not live by bread alone — either 
given or received. Love that reads in little common 
things a wealth that is more than golden, a glory that 
surpasses art, a meaning that is deeper than words — 
this is what love as^cs and what love gives. 

Look at the mother's love for her little baby. If 
one had no appreciation of it by any human sym- 
pathy, or touch of fellowship, how absurd it would 
be! How utterly unmeaning! What waste of pre- 
cious time ! What waste of energy to be chirping 
nonsense to a Httle child who can not understand 
a word of it ! But mother-love understands it, feasts 
on it. And so God pours out his love upon us, his 
children. He loves us even when we have gone 
astray into sin, and seeks to love us back again into 
his heart and home. 

And as the mother individualizes in her love for 
her children, does not love them all just alike — ^that 
is, just in the same way — but loves each one in his 
own way, so the child individualizes too, and the 
phrase ''My mother" is vastly dif¥etent from the term 
"A mother." There is something that separates her 
from all the' other mothers in the world, and there is 
a sense of luxury of love and restfulness of faith in 
the thought of "my own mother." 



The Motherhood of God 



13 



^ter one of the hard-fought battles of the Civil 
War, a Confederate chaplain was called hastily to see 
a dying soldier. Taking his hand, he said: 

"Well, my brother, what can I do for you?" 

He supposed that, as was frequently the case 
when he was called on such errands, the young fellow 
was wanting him to plead with God for help in his 
extremity ; but it was not so. 

''Chaplain," said he", "I want you to cut a lock of 
hair for my mother; and then, chaplain, I want you 
to kneel down and return thanks to God for me." 

"For what?" asked the chaplain. 

"For giving me such a mother. O, she is a good 
mother ! Her teachings are my comfort now. And 
then, chaplain, thank God that through her loving 
influence and teachings, and by his grace, I am a 
Christian, and am able to look up into his face and 
say, 'Our Father who art in heaven.' What would 
I do now if I were not a Christian? And thank him 
for giving me dying grace. He makes this hard bed 
feel 'soft as downy pillows are.' And, O chaplain, 
thank him for the promised home' in glory — I '11 soon 
be there to wait for and to welcome mother." 

And so the chaplain knelt by the side of that sol- 
dier's death-cot, not to utter a word of petition or 
pleading to God, but only to voice the praise and 
thanksgiving of a dying boy for a good mother, a 
Christian hope, dying grace, and an eternal home 
in heaven. 

And as our own mother seems different to us 
from any one else, so when we get into our hearts 
this thought of God as One who loves us personally, 
2 



14 



The Motherhood of God 



and our hearts respond to it in obedience and grati- 
tude, our thought of God is transformed, and in our 
heart of hearts we say tenderly, "My God," as with 
tearful love and gratitude a child would say of the 
tenderest mother, "My mother." 

We have in this figure, which God has used to 
make himself known to us, a suggestion of the sac- 
rificial love which caused him to come' to our rescue 
when we were poor sinners. There is no other illus- 
tration that can come so near adequately picturing 
that compassion and love which is revealed in the 
statement of Jesus that "God so loved the world, 
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life." The man who does not believe in vicari- 
ous atonement surely has not seen much of family 
life, and does not know much about how mothers 
give themselves for their children. Who has not 
known of some case where the father's heart has 
hardened against the son who has shamed him and 
disgraced him, so that he was not willing to see him 
again or to acknowledge him; but no matter 
who is against him, so long as he is above 
ground the wayward boy, marred and scarred by sin 
though he be, knows there is one place' that is warm 
toward him, and that is his mother's heart. And 
how like the mother's heart is the tenderness of God 
that sought after us in our sins, and continues to 
seek after us now, though we have wandered far 
away by wicked deeds. 

It is hard to see how men can sin against God's 
tenderness. We can understand how power might 



The Motherhood of God 



15 



fail to win, how a man might grit his teeth in the 
presence of fear and refuse to move ; but how a man 
can face the motherhood of God, the kindness of his 
love in Jesus Christ, the tenderness of that long- 
suffering patience that has followed him through all 
the years — that is hard to understand. 

We have suggested also in this figure the perfect \ 
restfulness of faith and confidence that may come ' 
to the soul which has this tender conception of God. 
Stephen must have had some thought like this about 
the Lord when amid the agony of his martyrdom he 
smiled with confidence and said, 'Xord Jesus, receive 
my spirit." If the child has anything it wants to keep, 
something that is very precious, and it wants to be 
sure that its right will be defended against all comers, ^ 
it is turned over to mother. Mothers are great treas- ^ 
ure-keepers for their children. So if we will give our 
hearts to God in grateful obedience' we may trust all 
to him with that supreme confidence of childhood. 
We know that he will keep it safe. He has the 
strength, he has the wisdom, and he has the' love to 
keep forever what we commit to his hands. 

This is a personal theme for every one of us. It 
is as if there were no God at all unless he is your own 
God. Some of you have been going on living with 
a vague and indifferent idea about God, and Christ, 
and heaven, and the immortal life. I call you to 
something infinitely more precious than that. 
Here is the God — the personal God, who loves you, 
who has followed after you in your indifiference, and 
who bends over you with the' tenderness of a mother's ^ 
heart in your loneHness and in your sorrow, and 



i6 



The Motherhood of God 



cries out to you with a tenderness of pleading beyond 
description or illustration, "As a mother comforteth 
her child, so will I comfort you." Are you lonely? 
Here is a chance to creep into the motherly arms 
of God and find peace. Are you sorrowful? You 
may come and put your head upon his breast and 
weep there and find infinite comfort. Are you sinful ? 
Then there is a heart throbbing with infinite com- 
passion and pity and love'. Come, pillow your head 
here, and find forgiveness. 



II 



Christ's "Den't Worry Club" 

*' Take therefore no thought for the morrow : for the morrow shall 
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof." — Matthew vi, 34. 

The;re: have been organized in New York City 
and in some other parts of the country what are 
known as "Do n't Worry clubs." But these are by 
no means original. Christ organized the first Do n't 
Worry club, when he gathered his circle of friends 
and disciples together, and began to teach them his 
own trustful spirit. One of the marvelous things 
about Jesus Christ is that he was never under any 
circumstances fretful, or peevish, or worried. The 
story of his life is very comprehensively told by four 
biographers, who had a great deal of interest in per- 
sonal detail where it affected his character in any 
way; but there is not a single place that even sug- 
gests such a thing as Christ giving way to worry. 
There can be no doubt that he expects his disciples 
to follow his example in this very important matter, 
and the Christian Church, wherever organized, is a 
Do n't Worry club. If its members fail to live up to 
that ideal they fail of the noblest and best Christian 
influence. 

I wish to speak specially at this time' about worry- 
17 



i8 



The Motherhood of God 



ing concerning the future. The text does not mean 
carelessness or recklessness about the future; but 
it is a caution against anxiety. We are to take no 
thought for the morrow which will in any way bur- 
den and dishearten us in the work of to-day. Worry 
is a very painful experience, and God made us to be 
happy. I grow more sure of that as I grow older. 
In spite of all the disappointments and defeats and 
hurts of life, I become surer every day that the key- 
note of human life is happiness, and that we have no 
right to give ourselves over to be' the bond slaves of 
painful worry and anxiety. There is perhaps no bad 
habit that grows more rapidly in power than a habit 
of worrying and foreboding evil for the future. 
Worry develops in us the brooding spirit, and Paul 
says that such people become vain m their imagina- 
tions, and their foolish heart is darkened, so that 
it does not perceive things clearly or in their true 
relation. 

Dr. George H. Hepworth comments aptly on the 
fact that one may brood over a very little matter until 
what was only an ant-hill swells to the size of a 
mountain. Dwelling upon a present annoyance, or 
unduly upon a threatened trouble, you magnify it, so 
that it assumes proportions which do not rightly 
belong to it. Your logical faculty is set aside, is 
banished to the background ; you are no longer a 
reasoning being, but one who imagines facts, and 
then acts as though they were real. This is a dan- 
gerous thing to do, because you erect a false stand- 
ard of measurement, and your life gets to be all out 
of joint. The friendship which has been very dear 



Chrises ''Don't Worry Club'' 



19 



to you dwindles until it becomes a mere suspicion, 
and suspicion is no basis on which to build any sweet 
or lasting relationship. 

One may brood over a physical ailment until all 
the forces of nature sweep in that direction, and it 
becomes far more serious than it would otherwise 
have been. Christian Science, so-called, mental heal- 
ing, and all such kindred fads have deceived so many 
people because they have at the starting-point a cer- 
tain vein of truth, though it is lost in the fancies and 
errors gathered about them. But it remains true 
that one may think of a pain until it doubles its force 
and becomes almost unbearable, whereas in point of 
fact it is not at all serious; or any one may ignore 
many small ills until they are forgotten. 

A man may nurse an injury, or a supposed injury, 
until it grows to be the one' overwhelming thing in 
his experience, dominating his whole being and set- 
ting his worst passions in motion ; or he can curb 
his imagination, allow reason to come to the front, 
and reach the conclusion nine times out of ten that 
after all it is an insignificant afifair, not worth any 
particular notice'. 

Worrying about the future is especially a folly, 
because it is proverbial that it is the unexpected that 
happens. No man can have the forces of life so well 
in hand that he can take the disposing of them out 
of the hands of God. If you watch the afternoon sky 
you will see that the Divine Artist can paint a thou- 
sand cloud-pictures in one afternoon, and dissolve' 
them all at last, and let the sun go down in a cloud- 
less sky. So God can deal with human life by our 



20 



The Motherhood of God 



aid ; but we' may reverently say, what is certainly true, 
that even God can not banish the clouds from our 
sky unless we are willing. 

One of the sad things about this worrying habit 
is, that it is contagious. There are some diseases 
which a man may have, and though his being sick 
may annoy his friends, they are in no danger of catch- 
ing the sickness from him; but there are other dis- 
eases so contagious that the victim not only suffers 
himself, but brings everybody who comes near him 
into danger. The man who worries has that kind of 
disease. He breeds anxiety in other people. His 
anxious face, his depressed spirits, his cynical atti- 
tude toward life, his despairing, hopeless outlook on 
the future' communicates itself to some extent to 
others, to their great sorrow. It is a serious thing 
to have that kind of an effect on people. 

Major Waddell has been traveling in the Hima- 
layas, and tells an interesting story of the leeches 
that he met with in the damp forest of the Teesta 
Valley. When a leech is famishing he is only about 
as thick as a knitting-needle'. In that condition he 
is the hungry enemy of every two- or four-footed 
creature that crosses his path. In this valley the 
leeches were everywhere. They stood alert on every 
twig of the brushwood that overhung the track of the 
travelers, and on every dead leaf on the path. And 
as the explorers drew near the creatures lashed them- 
selves vigorously to and fro in a wild endeavor to 
seize hold of them. The instant they touch their 
victim they fix themselves firmly, and then mount 
nimbly up by a series of rapid somersaults till they 



Chrisrs ''Don't Worry Club'' 



21 



reach a vulnerable point; and then they lose not an 
instant in beginning their surgical operations. The 
servants in Major Waddell's company, who walked 
barefooted, had little streams of blood trickling down 
from their ankle's all day long, and at every few steps 
they had to stop and pick off these horrid little pests, 
and it was often difficult to dislodge them. 

The influence of a man who has the worrying 
habit bad is like that. Spiritual leeches wriggle in his 
conversation, stand up and swing to and fro from his 
countenance, and seize with hungry, leech-like avidity 
upon every unfortunate friend or acquaintance who 
comes near enough to be bitten. Not only for our 
own sakes, but for the sake of the people' we love, for 
the sake of our influence on others, we ought to 
dodge the worrying habit as we would the plague. 

Worrying about the future not only unfits us to 
meet the duties of to-morrow, but it unfits us for the 
work of to-day. To-day is the' time about which we 
ought to take most thought. And we all know there 
is no need of being anxious about to-day. One of 
the best characterizations Henry Ward Beecher ever 
made was this : "The past belongs to gratitude' and 
regret; the present to contentment and work; the 
future to hope and trust." And that surely is the 
Christian's attitude. The time and place for earnest 
thought and action on our part is the living present. 
"To-day is the day of salvation" in everything im- 
portant concerning us. 

Fritter away to-day, or brood it away in fooHsh 
anxiety about to-morrow, and to-morrow is already 
doomed to failure. But do your duty to-day, and 



22 



The Motherhood of God 



to-day's faithfulness will stand sponsor for to-mor- 
row's success. I was interested recently, looking out 
from my study window, to watch some men working 
on the iron frame of a new business block. They 
were fastening the frame together with large rivets. 
On one floor a man had a fire, and in this he was 
heating the rivets red-hot, and every minute or so he 
tossed one of these heated rivets through the air, 
and a man standing on the floor above him caught it 
in a tin can, and another man took it with a pair of 
pincers, and while it was still red as flame drove it 
into its place and flattened a he'ad on the soft iron on 
the other side. I said to myself, Life is Hke that; 
to make things hold you must drive the red-hot rivets 
of to-day's duty into their place. Opportunities will 
not keep hot over into to-morrow. No hammer will 
beat the point of a cold rivet into a shape that wifl 
hold. And to do your duty to-day as it ought to be 
done, you must stop worrying about to-morrow. 

Christ's Do n't Worry club is founded on the 
great fact that God cares for us, knows what we need, 
means that if we do our duty we shall have it, and if 
we trust him we have a right to look on the sun- 
shiny side of life. There is always a bright side to 
life, and it is wonderful how quick you can find it 
when you really start out to seek it. This is vastly 
important from the fact that the best growths of the 
human heart demand the sunshine of good cheer and 
hope in order to come to their best. 

A man once planted two rose-trees, one on either 
side of his house. The trees were' equally strong and 
healthy; but after a time the one grew and pros- 



Christ's ''Don't Worry Qub'' 23 



pered, and the other withered and died. Then the 
man discovered that the living rose-tree was on the 
sunny side of the house. The best manhood and 
womanhood can only be developed in the sunshine 
of Christian faith and hope. Rest assured that the 
best things in your life will be stunted and dwarfed 
forever if you give yourself over to anxiety and 
worry. The best things in the human heart can not 
live and prosper without cheerfulness. A little child 
was often observed playing by itself, and laughing 
and singing with delight. They asked the child what 
it was playing with, and the little' one answered, "I 
am playing with the sunbeams." It would be better 
for some of us to quit dabbling with the clouds, and 
learn how to play with the sunbeams instead. 

Christ gives another great reason for not worry- 
ing in that concluding sentence', "Sufficient unto the 
day is the evil thereof." That is, there is no necessity 
for us to carry any burdens which do not belong to 
to-day. One of the rules of Christ's Do n't Worry 
club is, that we shall set this sunset Hmit to the carry- 
ing of each day's burdens. Any of us can get 
through, by God's help and by aid of the friendship 
and sympathy of our loved ones, with the cares of 
to-day, and we have no right to load ourselves up 
with to-morrow until it comes. 

John Newton used to compare the trials and 
troubles which come to one in the' course of a year 
to a bundle of fagots, far too large for us to lift. 
But God does not require us to carry the whole at 
once. He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us 
first one stick, which we are' to carry to-day, and 



24 



The Motherhood of God 



then another, which we are to carry to-morrow, and 
so on. Any of us are strong enough with the Divine 
help to go bravely through if we live in that spirit. 
Let us heed the message of the poet : 

"Be master of the clouds, 

Let them not master thee ; 
Compel the sunshine to thy soul, 
However rough the sea. 

Be not as those who own 

Nor hope nor glow of faith ; 
Beyond the clouds the light remains 

And true life conquers death. 

Be thou of good cheer yet. 

Though dark and drear the way ; 
The longest night wears on to dawn, 

And dawn to perfect day. 

Possess thy soul in calm. 

Let patience rule thy heart, 
And in gray shades of clouded times 

Bear thou the hero's part. 

Then shalt thou know the flush 

Of happy, radiant days : 
For he who trusts God in the dark 

Is taught new songs of praise." 



Ill 



The Best Wealth Open for All 

"And is not rich toward God." — Luke xii, 21. 

This is the conclusion of the story of a man whom 
God judged to be a fool. He was a very prosperous 
man in his own time and way. He was a good farmer, 
raised great crops, and gave his whole attention to the 
acquiring of riches. He' had such remarkable success 
that his greatest trouble was the embarrassment of 
riches. Some farmers are troubled to find enough to 
put in their barns, but his chief perplexity was to keep 
the' barns up to the increase in his crops. The Lord 
did not call this man a fool because he had a good 
farm, or because he was careful in taking care of 
his crops, but because he seemed to regard this as 
the chief end of his life, and imagined that a barn full 
of oats and hay and a crib full of corn were suffi- 
cient to make a man happy. 

God did not call him a fool for laying up riches 
for himself ; but his folly consisted in the fact that 
on the heavenward side of his nature he was a 
pauper. He had stored up an abundance for this 
world, but nothing for the next. He had piled up 
goods to feed the body, but he was not rich toward 
God. To be rich toward God is to be rich in one's 

25 



20 



The Motherhood of God 



inner self, to have wealth which does not depend 
on the body or the present life or the present world. 

If a man had a chance to pick up diamonds, and 
instead he filled his pockets with marbles, you would 
all agree he was a fool ; but here is a man who has a 
chance to enrich himself in his character, in his 
real self, with the deep joy and happiness which come 
from goodness and from appreciation of Divine 
things, that clothe the spirit with love, hope, and 
faith, that endure forever; and instead of treasur- 
ing up these diamonds that will shine and brighten 
through all eternity, he devotes himself exclusively 
to the temporary af¥airs of the present life in a body 
which can at best last but a little while. The world, 
looking on, calls him rich, because he has abundance 
of physical goods ; but God, looking down upon his 
great blunder, calls him a fool. 

Now, the thought I wish to lay special emphasis 
on is that the best wealth, that which is most endur- 
ing, that which we can keep as a permanent invest- 
ment and draw interest on under all circumstances, 
is open for everybody on the same terms. Nobody 
has a corner on it, and no trust or syndicate or pro- 
moter can ever get exclusive control of it so as to 
shut out the poorest of God's children. 

One important element of this wealth is a con- 
tented mind. If a man has made up his mind to 
do his best and leave the result to God, so that he 
goes along about his work with confidence that all 
things work together for good to them that love 
God, and therefore has a right to plead God's prom- 
ise, then he is a rich man in the truest sense. He 



The Best Wealth Open for Alt 



27 



may succeed largely in his business, or he may have 
a very small measure of riches, but he will have all 
the revenue that comes from riches as he goes along. 
If riches signify anything, they signify ease and com- 
fort and happiness. The people who are' longing to 
get wealth in this world want it because they think 
it will give them ease and comfort and happiness. 
The contented man or woman has these as he' or 
she goes along in the struggle of life. 

The story is told of Pyrrhus, an ancient king, 
that, elated by victory, he was detaihng to Cineas, 
his prime minister, all his projected triumphs. "I 
will conquer Sicily." 

"What then?" 

"Then I will make myself master of Spain." 
"And what then?" 

"Why, then," said the monarch, "we can take 
our ease and be happy." 

"And why," replied Cineas, "can not we' do that 
now ?" 

And the monarch was silenced at the question 
of his prime minister. A contented spirit draws 
happiness out of the simple things of life, and thus 
enjoys the reve'nue of wealth; but no matter how 
much prosperity a man has, if he is not rich in this 
spirit of contentment, he is poor, even in the midst 
of his successes. 

One of the most fabulously wealthy men who 
lived in New York some years ago, a man worth a 
great many millions of dollars, used to be heard by 
his servants as he tossed, night after night, on his 
bed: "O God! I wonder when it will be morning!" 



28 



The Motherhood of Goo 



He could have commanded, the next day, twenty 
milHons of dollars ; but he was a pauper in spirit. 
He was a poor, miserable snag of humanity, with 
the eyes and feelings of a hawk, forever pouncing 
on what promised to yield back money to his claws, 
and up to the very last he was sagacious and shrewd 
and cunning about money; but he was a poverty- 
stricken wretch in all that peace and comfort and 
happiness which money is supposed to bring. He 
loved nobody, and nobody love'd him; and he 
went about gritting his teeth when he remembered 
how his heirs were cursing and swearing because 
he lived so long. His heart was a perfect desert, 
utterly barren of everything that was comfortable 
or luxurious or deHghtful. No wonder God calls 
such a man a fool. But a man does not need 
to have twenty millions of dollars in order to 
be a fool. You and I see men every day who are 
wilHng to be fools for less money. 

I saw a man the other day in a hotel. He sat 
at the same table with me, and was bragging and 
boasting about his business success ; but he was 
so fretful and peevish and discontented in his spirit 
that he made the waiters and everybody about the 
place hate the sight of him. He may have told the 
truth about his financial prosperity; but one' thing 
is certain, he was living a fool's life, and his spirit 
was that of a pauper. His money brought him no 
comfort ; and if you were to give him a thousand 
dollars for one it would still bring him no comfort. 
He carries a hell of selfishness and discontent in 
his own breast, and no amount of success will bring 



The Best Wealth Open for AU 



29 



him happiness so long as he is thus a pauper in his 
relation to God. 

Another important element of this better wealth 
is in its treasures of sympathy and love. A great 
nobleman died, and his executors, on looking 
through his safe, found an iron chest, all locked up, 
but marked, ''To be' removed first in case of fire." 
The lawyers supposed that it contained some valu- 
able document or deed of property, rich jewelry, 
or costly plate, or a bag of coin ; and they were 
greatly astonished at what they found. They found 
the toys of his Httle child that had died many years 
before. Richer to him were they than all this 
world's wealth, richer than his ducal coronet, 
brighter than all the jewels that sparkled on its 
crest. Not his estate, not his jewels, not his equi- 
page, nothing great or glorious in this world — ^but 
the de'arest objects to him were the toys of his little 
child. I suppose some people would call that man 
a fool. They would say it was all sentiment ; but 
the priceless treasures of the soul lie' in that glorious 
realm of sentiment. Take that away, and man is 
only a money-grubber with a muck-rake. 

Henry Ward Beecher used to tell of a man who 
lived on the Big Miami bottoms in Mr. Beecher's 
younger AVestern days. This farmer was supposed 
to be worth half a million dollars, which was an 
enormous fortune at that time'. He lived in the 
upper story of a rattling old log cabin (the first 
story being given up to his hogs) ; and when, of a 
winter's night, their squealing and quarreling would 
interrupt him, he would kick away a board that 
3 



30 



The Motherhood of God 



covered a hole in the loose floor and hallo down 
to the'm, and sometimes throw things at them. Then, 
w^hen a momentary quiet had been restored, he 
would push back the board, and eat or sleep, as 
the case might be. There are a great many people 
who live like that in the higher sense. The whole 
under story of life — the ground level — is filled with 
swine. And when they make an uproar that dis- 
turbs the occupant in the' upper story, they are 
checked a little; but they are never changed, and 
they are swine still. 

It is an awful thing for a man capable of loving, 
capable of entering into sympathy and fellowship 
with his kind, capable of exerting himself to bring 
blessing to immortal spirits, to come down to herd- 
ing with the swine like that. Yet how many there 
are who live in just such poverty when the diviner 
wealth is so easily within their reach. 

Another element of this divine wealth is the in- 
vestment which we get in the souls of those whom, 
by self-denial and holy living, we are able to snatch 
as gems from the mire. 

Chicago has recently been entertaining a very 
remarkable woman. Henry Justin Smith tells how 
she came' sailing down through the St. Lawrence 
and the Great Lakes in November, 1899, with a 
message of love for almost every city on her way. 
Then her little yacht was moored for months in 
a spot where the' Chicago River runs blackest and 
the smoke hangs densest. It was a refuge for thou- 
sands of men, many of whom might have perished 
from hunger and cold; and the owner, who was 



The Best Wealth Open for AU 31 

Countess Adeline Schimme'lmann, of Denmark, 
preached Jesus Christ to them while she supplied 
their physical wants. And so Chicago was treated 
to an example of self-sacrifice and love which will 
not soon fade' from the memory of that city. 

The Countess Schimmelmann is an eager little 
lady, with a sensitive, affectionate face. One thought 
possesses her, is constantly voiced in her conver- 
sation, and is carried into all her relations with 
others: "the simple love of Christ." Her story is 
very interesting. Yonder in Denmark, where stands 
the grand castle of her fathers — a line reaching back 
to the very beginning of Danish history — they still 
think that her obedience to the command, *'Go, sell 
that thou hast, and give to the poor," has brought 
disgrace upon the name of Schimmelmann. She' 
gave up a brilHant career at court to become a 
practical philanthropist. Born in 1854, she was 
presented at court at the age of eighteen, serving 
as chief maid of honor until 1886, admired of nobles 
and of statesmen. Then came the great shadow, 
when her relatives, scandalized because she was giv- 
ing her fortune and her jewels to get funds to carry 
on her mission work on the Baltic Sea, caused her 
to be confined in a madhouse, and seized her prop- 
erty. But after a few weeks of the horrible expe- 
' rience she was released through the influence of 
powerful friends, and permitted to continue her work 
of feeding the hungry and of proclaiming Christ. 
But to this day she' can hardly speak of that awful 
time in the madhouse without a shade coming on 
her radiant face. 



32 



The Motherhood of God 



For years this countess has been giving not only 
her money but her time and her young life and 
soul to the very poorest of men and women, rejoic- 
ing in winning the worst to know and love her 
Savior. Many people say that she is a fool; but 
she, with a face as kind and sweet as an angel's, 
and radiant with joy, declares that it is the best 
investment she ever made, and that her happiness 
is infinitely multiplied since she began to be rich 
toward God. 

These are some of the jewels she wears now. 
She was preaching on day in a little' Canada town, 
in the open air, and after she had done, a man 
stood up at the back of the crowd, flung his hands 
above his head, and cried, "1 believe in Christ, who 
saves me from sin." He was the leading man in 
the town, and had been a savage atheist; but the 
charm of this noble lady's presence and the sincer- 
ity evidenced by her self-sacrifice broke down his 
unbelief, and the little countess counts him as one 
of her jewels among her riches toward God. 

She went into a prison in Detroit, and there 
saw two colored girls behind the bars. They were 
wild from confinement, and climbed up on their 
cage like panthers, shrieking and showing their 
teeth. But the countess went into the cage with 
them, and gave herself to them in such sympathy and 
tenderness that she won their hearts and won them 
both from their sins to a Christian life, and she holds 
them as precious black diamonds of the heavenly 
wealth. 

She once held a meeting among the men who 



The Best Wealth Open for Alt 



33 



sell liquor to sailors on the Baltic Sea. Naturally 
they were wicked, desperate characters. She went 
about among them, personally inviting them to her 
meetings. She said, ''Won't you come and learn 
how to make your business more profitable?" A 
great crowd of them came together, and she said 
to them : "J^st give up selling liquor, and give your 
hearts to Christ. That 's the way to make your 
business profitable." The miracle of it is that the 
Holy Spirit so blessed her consecration to the sal- 
vation of men that a large number of these desper- 
ate men did give up their iniquitous business, and 
became earnest and happy Christians. 

When she was in the Thousand Islands, there 
was to be a great ball at one of the fine club-houses 
there. Very naturally, these fashionable people 
were' desirous of having a live countess present at 
their ball ; and so they urged her to come. At first 
she declined ; and then a bright thought came to 
her, and she said, "If you will let me speak for 
Christ, I will come." That ball was turned into a 
gospel service, and she spoke with faithfulness for 
her Lord. 

Now this woman, to whom following Christ has 
meant so much, is receiving, from all over the world, 
letters from men and women who tell her that they 
have found Christ through her. And she declares 
that she' only knew what wealth was and what hap- 
piness was when she began to use her earthly riches 
in such a way as to convert them into the wealth 
that takes hold upon God and eternity. 

We are not all countesses, and we' do not all 



34 



The Motherhood of God 



have fortunes to give; but the mind of humanity is 
open for every one of us ; and, after all, the richest 
treasure she gives is her sympathy, her kindness, 
herself; and all of us may enter into that fellowship 
and may be thus gathering treasures that v/ill re- 
joice our hearts forever. 



IV 



The Palmistry of the Saints 

*'A11 his saints are in thy hand." — Deut. xxxiil, 3. 

Dr. Alexander Maclarkn has said that this an- 
cient Hebrew singer, who knew nothing about the 
incarnation or the cross, rose, in the song of which 
this is a fragment, to the height which the last of 
the apostles reached in the last of his writings, and 
in his own dialect says, with John, "We love him be- 
cause he first loved us ;" that, like an orchid grow- 
ing on a bit of dry wood, and yet putting forth a 
gorgeous bloom, this man, with so little to feed 
his faith in comparison with what nourishes ours, 
yet bore this fair flower of deep insight into the 
secret of things and the heart of God. 

The entire paragraph is striking. It gives a 
majestic picture of God. "And this is the blessing 
wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the chil- 
dren of Israel before his death. And he said. The 
Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto 
them ; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he 
came with ten thousands of saints : from his right 
hand went a fiery law for them. Yea, he loved the 
people ; all his saints are in thy hand : and they 
sat down at thy feet ; every one shall receive of 
thy words." 

35 



36 



The Motherhood of God 



The message which I wish especially to bring to 
you at this time is the lessons suggested by the' figure 
of the hand, which is used in the Bible so commonly 
in reference to the relation of God and Christ to 
the Christian. The first thought is that of security. 
The hand of God is a safe place for those who trust 
him. Christ declared to his disciples that no one 
w^ould ever be able to snatch them out of his hand. 
We may take ourselves, by our own willfulness and 
sin, beyond the reach of the Divine protection, and 
bring upon ourselves disaster and ruin ; but no one 
else can do it so long as we submit ourselves to 
God. God will never fail to keep his great promises, 
with which the Bible is filled, if we fulfill our part 
of the conditions. 

A simple old man, seventy-four years of age, had 
to work very hard for a living; but he found great 
comfort in his Bible. The minister called to see 
him one day in his little home, and found him held 
fast to his chair with rheumatism ; but the old man 
had his big family Bible open before him, with his 
horn spectacles on, and with his horny fingers trac- 
ing out, one by one, the words of the Sacred Book. 
The preacher went up to him, and, looking over 
his shoulder, noticed some writing on the margin 
of the Bible. On examining more carefully, he 
found that the old man had written one word con- 
tinually on the margin. It was the word "Proved." 
He looked along, and found it had a regular sys- 
tem. "God is our refuge and strength, a very pres- 
ent help in trouble." — 'Troved," ''j\Iy sheep 
. . . shall never perish ; neither shall any man 



The Patmisiry of the Saints 



37 



pluck them out of my hand." — "Proved." "Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest." — "Proved." "Trust in the 
Lord, and do good, . . . and verily thou shalt 
be fed." — "Proved." "This is a faithful saying, and 
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came 
into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." 
— "Proved." And so it went on through the Book. 
The dear old saint had taken God's Book and writ- 
ten out his own experience on the margin. Against 
each promise of the Bible, as he had found it to 
come' true in his own Hfe, he had written that word, 
"Proved." What a new Bible it would be to us if 
we were to take the same plan and write our own 
experience between the line's ! How it would illu- 
minate our periods of depression! How it would 
banish the blues and comfort our hearts if we were 
constantly conscious that we are' in God's hands, 
that the strong grip of his fingers is about us, that 
the kindly warmth of his palm holds us, that no 
harm can come to us while we are there, and no 
one shall be able to snatch us away from that safe 
refuge. 

The same figure is used in the Bible to show us 
how God keeps us in constant remembrance. In 
Isaiah he says, in speaking of his people, "I have 
graven thee upon the palms of my hands." In that 
day it was a common practice to tattoo on the hands 
or arms tribal marks, and it was also common to 
brand in a cruel way some indication of ownership 
of a slave as a Western rancher brands his cattle. 

Paul refers to this when he says, in substance, 



38 



The Motherhood of God 



in his letter to the Galatians, "Henceforth let no 
man trouble me; for I bear brands on my body, 
the' marks of the Lord Jesus." Paul was pleased 
to feel that the marks which had been left on him 
by hardship and trial received through his devotion 
to Jesus had come to him for Christ's sake, and 
bore their silent but eloquent testimony to the' fact 
that he was an honest and faithful servant of Jesus 
Christ. But how tender is the illustration when God 
says to those who seek to do his will, "I have graven 
thee upon the palms of my hands." If he had graven 
the names of his people on his forehead, other people 
might see, but he would not; but he puts them on 
his hands, where he can see them. The hands are 
the executive powers of the body. Most of the 
orders that come from the brain for the safety and 
control of every-day life come to the hands. The 
hands are the seat of skill, strength, defense, and 
accomplishment. It is as though God said to us, 
"All the skill of my infinite wisdom, all the power 
of my omnipotence, I put at your disposal ; for I 
have graven your image on the' palm of my hand, 
and no one shall ever be able to rub it out." 

The tenderness of this figure is beyond all our 
power to illustrate. We' do not know how to explain 
why God loves us so much. It can not be explained at 
all except on the basis of the Bible revelation of 
God as a father and as a mother. I have seen many 
a mother who loved children that nobody else seemed 
to love. They might be ugly and ill-favored and 
unpleasant, but the mother loved them just the 
same. So God seems to love people when we do 



The Palmistry of the Saints 



39 



not see anything in them worth loving. He sees 
it because' he looks with the eye of a Heavenly 
Father. 

How it should take away every thought of aus- 
terity and hardness from our conception of God 
when we hear him say, "I have graven thee upon 
the palms of my hands/' It brings us so close to 
him that we can appreciate the thought of the little 
boy at Duxhurst, England, in Lady Somerset's home 
for slum children, who, after he had finished saying 
his prayers, did as children often do, and put in 
another petition as a kind of postscript. "And 
please, God, would you mind giving my mother a 
kiss?" Some' one has written a poem, which I think 
interprets the pretty idea unusually well: 



"Please, God, I have finished my prayers, 
But there's one thing I want to say, 
My mother hves up at the top of the stairs. 
And she's lonely now I'm away. 

You'll be sure to know her, because 
There ain't nobody half so good; 

And she's just the dearest that ever was, 
I 'd die for her if I could. 



The neighbors are not very bad. 

But, of course, they are n' t like me, 

I ' ve got for to think what will make her glad, 
And to get her a cup of tea. 

And sometimes, please, God, she ain't strong, 

She have got such a lot to do, 
And it frets her so much when folks does wrong, 

And she thinks no end of you. 



40 



The Motherhood of God 



When she's tired she Hkes to sit 
And lean up hard against me, 

For it comforts her aching head a bit, 
To rest it upon my knee. 

I sit all so still and do n' t stir, 
And she calls me her bit of joy, 

And tells me I 'm like a mother to her 
As well as her sonny-boy. 

It does hurt me to think of her 

All alone by the firelight. 
And she ain't got me for to comfort her, 

To love her, and hold her tight. 

So please, God, I hope you won't mind 
If I ask you just to do this — 

I 'm sure she 'd take it so very kind 
If you'd please to give her a kiss." 



But there is a science of palmistry for us as well 
as for God. In that same book of Isaiah there is a 
wonderful paragraph, which tells of God's gracious- 
ness and its results upon the people. "For I will 
pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon 
the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, 
and my blessing upon thine of¥spring: and they 
shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by 
the water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord's : 
and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob ; 
and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the 
Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel." 
What is meant by subscribing with his hand unto 
the Lord is that same practice of engraving or tat- 
tooing on the hand. It was the putting on the 



The Patmisiry of the Saints 



41 



hand a statement of the fact that he was sacred to 
God. This makes our Christianity a sacred com- 
pact between God and man. I think there are some 
people who seem to act as though they felt that 
religion was a one-sided afifair. They are com- 
forted and rejoiced so long as you talk to them 
about their being graven on the hand of God and 
his loving care for them ; but their joy departs 
when you point out that the necessary condition 
of such protection and love on God's part must be 
that their own hands are' to be set apart as sacred 
to God and his service. Yet the're is no gospel that 
we need to preach so earnestly to-day as this. 

In the twenty-fourth psalm, David inquires, 
''Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who 
shall stand in his holy place?" And he answers it 
by giving as the very first condition, "He that hath 
clean hands." When Christ would prove to his dis- 
ciples after his resurrection that he was beyond all 
doubt the same Jesus who had loved them so de- 
votedly that he had been nailed to the cross in their 
stead, he spread out his palms before them, and 
cried, "Behold my hands." The're were the prints 
of the nails that had been driven through the palms 
of his hands when he was fastened to the cruel 
cross. How beautiful those hands seemed to the 
disciples, and what certain testimony they were to 
his love. So the supreme testimony which we can 
bear to God and Christ is the' testimony of our 
hands. 

Christ is crucified afresh when some man professes 
by his relation to the Church and to Christian- 



42 



The Motherhood of God 



ity that he is graven on the hand of God, and yet 
proves by his conduct that Christ and God are not 
graven on his hand. It is not the preacher in the 
pulpit only who should have clean hands that will 
bear testimony to his integrity when he preaches 
the word of life to the congregation ; but every man 
or woman who professes the name of Jesus must 
carry clean hands in business and in social and re- 
ligious life in order to be helpful as a witness for 
Christ. If a man oppresses his employees, or is 
guilty of sharp practice in his business affairs, or 
fails to do honest work faithfully where' he is em- 
ployed, his profession of Christianity will only hin- 
der the cause of Christ. The Christian's hands 
should be set apart to honorable practice and fair 
dealing, sacred to God and humanity. Men will 
judge us, and will judge the' value of the Christianity 
which we profess, by our conduct. 

The Christian hand should be a hand like Christ's, 
that allows its palm to be nailed to the cross rather 
than be faithless and disloyal to God. We should 
have Paul's spirit of devotion, who regarded the 
wounds made by fighting with beasts as marks of 
honor in his service for Christ. 

The Christian hand should be like Christ's in its 
helpfulness. The hand of Jesus was never too proud 
to take that of the' leper ; it was ever ready to make 
clay to anoint a blind man's eyes ; it went forth will- 
ingly to give encouragement and help to the man 
who was in trouble and was friendless. You and 
T can not do in detail the same things that Christ 
did in the same' way. We can not reproduce his 



The Patmistiy of the Saints 



43 



life in Palestine; but we can live in his spirit. We 
can, by God's help, keep our hands clean from the 
smut of dishonesty or the clutch of ill-gotten money 
or the deadly paralysis of idleness. We can fill our 
hands with earnest work, as he did, keeping them 
loyally faithful to every good and true cause. We 
can stretch forth our hands to the man who is in 
need or trouble. We' can raise them for the defense 
of the weak, and make their strength tell on the 
side of righteousness. 



V 



The Recognition of Friends in Heaven 

' ' We are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be ab- 
sent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord." — 2 Corin- 
thians V, 8 (Rev. Ver. ) 

Paul regarded his body in which he lived on 
earth not as himself, but as a temporary house 
which sheltered him from the storm, and made it 
possible for him to perform the work he had to 
do. As he gets older, he sometimes speaks of it 
as a frontiersman might speak of an old log house 
that he' had built in his youth, and in the early days 
of the settlement, before mills were erected, and 
when it was impossible to get lumber. The log 
house served its purpose ; but with the passing of 
years the logs began to decay, the storms w^ore 
away the chinking, and the winds began to find their 
way through the cracks. But if the settler has done 
well and so gained in substance that he has been 
able to build a new house, far more spacious and 
comfortable and beautiful than the old, he does not 
sorrow over the decay that has come to the old log 
hut that was once so important. 

That is the way that Paul talks about his body. 
He says the earthly house gets old and perishes; 
but what of it ? He has a house on high — a spiritual 
house, a house that was built for him by the Lord, 

44 



The Recogniiion of Friends in Hea'ven 



45 



a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 
Paul never worried about the past. He took 
courage from the past to beHeve that out of it a 
newer and better to-morrow must come. The past 
and present were to Paul seeds of a new harvest. 
He believed that out of these seeds a new and glo- 
rious future was to be realized. Some poet has 
sung what seems to me to be Paul's thought : 

"They told me, ' The past is dead,' 

And bade me look at the leaves 

Withering on the ground ; 
But I turned to them and said, 

' Behold, I have found the key 

Of a spring that is to be ; 
And the dear past is not dead — 

There is sap still in the tree.' 

Then they show^ed me a nest 

Riven by envious winds. 

And hanging by a straw^. 
And said, ' Do you think it best 

The birds of your hope shovdd come, 

Expecting to find a home 
In this mockery of rest?' 

Then I said, * Let me alone. ' 

The leaves may lie on the ground, 

The nest may hang by a straw. 

And there may be many graves ; 
But this I have ever found : 

Life is a thing called Death, 

That living is more than breath ; 
The Past is no burial-mound. 

But the cradle of my faith." 

A great many questions rise to our minds in 
regard to the' future life which it is not possible 
4 



46 



The Motherhood of God 



for us to answer now. But there are some plain 
and simple certainties made known to us in God's 
Word. One of these is that death does not end our 
lives ; that the body is not our conscious self ; that 
the' human body is something we can be absent 
from or live in, and we are the same personality 
when absent from it as we have been while residing 
in it. 

Another fact closely related to this is that in the 
future life we are not simply spirits : we are spiritual 
beings, and shall reside in spiritual houses — that is, 
we shall have, as Paul says, a spiritual body ; but 
there is a great difference between a spirit and a 
spiritual body. A spirit is a conscious personality, 
and the spiritual body is the heavenly form in which 
the spirit lives. That this spiritual body is in the 
human form is certainly very clearly indicated in the 
Bible. Peter and James and John had no difficulty 
in their recognition of Moses and Elias on the 
Mount of Transfiguration; and all the angels and 
glorified beings spoken of in the Bible have appeared 
in the human form. Some people have had much 
of worry, and some skeptics and enemies of Christ 
have made a good many sneers about the impossi- 
bility of the resurrection of the body; but all such 
worry and all such sneers are born of folly. The 
God who made the world, and who carries it on, 
and who formed man in his own likeness and image, 
is able to take care of all that is important to his 
children. 

One of the workmen employed by Profes- 
sor Faraday, the famous scientist, one day acci- 



The RecogmUon of Friends in Hea.Den 47 

dentally knocked a very beautiful silver cup into a 
jar of powerful acid. At once it was eaten up by 
the acid, and no trace of it could be found. The 
workmen had quite a discussion about it, one affirm- 
ing that he could find it, while others declared that 
it was impossible. During the dispute the great 
chemist himself appeared, and, hearing of the acci- 
dent, dropped into the jar certain chemicals, and im- 
mediately every particle of silver was precipitated 
to the bottom. The shapeless mass of silver was 
then handed over to the silversmith who had made 
the first cup, and he made it into another so like 
the first that no one could distinguish the difference. 
Does anybody believe' that, if Professor Faraday 
could recover his scattered cup, the all-wise and in- 
finitely powerful God can not restore the scattered 
dust of his own loved ones, and bring it together re- 
fined and glorified, until a more beautiful form than 
before shall clothe the spirit of his child? 

Another certainty of the heavenly life is that 
we shall continue to be interested in the same things 
in which our hearts are most engaged in this world. 
The little details of human life which connect us 
with the body will cease to interest us, because no 
longer needed ; but the great things that have in- 
terested us in our souls will still be important to 
us. When Moses and Elias came to visit Christ 
on the Mount of Transfiguration, it was to talk with 
him about his coming sacrifice for the sins of the 
world, the great atonement which he was to make ; 
and these mighty men, who had l)een in heaven for 
centuries, and who had hoped for the Messiah that 



48 



The Moiherhood of God 



was to come, were' still full of interest in and sym- 
pathy with the great plan for the' salvation of the 
world. So we shall be interested in the carrying 
out of God's loving purpose toward mankind. 
Death will not rob us of those great interests into 
which we have put so much toil and thrown so much 
of our real selves while' we lived on earth. 

Another certainty of heaven is that we shall rec- 
ognize there our friends who have been dear to us 
here. While' those relations which naturally have 
their center in the body will not continue in the 
heavenly world, all the spiritual sympathy and lov- 
ing fellowship which are their chief glory on earth 
will continue in the world beyond. This is not 
mere theory. Every illustration and inference of 
the teaching of Christ and of Paul assume, as a mat- 
ter of course, that this will be true. Christ tells 
us that Dives, even from his place of torment, saw 
Lazarus, the beggar who used to He at his gate ; 
and though he now saw him in marvelously changed 
circumstances, as the bosom friend of Abraham, 
one of God's princes, he still knew him and recog- 
nized him at once, despite all the wonderful transfor- 
mation that had come to pass. On this point noth- 
ing could be surer evidence than Christ's promise 
to his intimate friends in that loving talk which he 
had with them just before his death, that it would 
be his joyous work in heaven to make ready for 
them. There were then many mansions in the Fa- 
ther's house, but new ones were to be built; for 
Christ says to these timid and discouraged friends, 

go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and 



The Recognition of Friends in Heaven 49 

prepare a place for you, I will come again and re- 
ceive you unto myself, that where I am there ye 
may be also." Christ would not have deceived these 
men ; for in speaking of the many mansions he says, 
''If it were not so, I would have told you" — that is, 
if there was to be no heavenly reunion between him- 
self and these loving friends, he would have told 
them. He would not have let them go on hoping 
and wishing and dreaming that it might be so, only 
to be grievously disappointed at the last. Christ 
evidently said this so that they, and all who should 
believe on him through their words down to our 
time and to the end of the world, might feel that 
every word he said to them about heaven and the 
home among the Father's mansions, and he him- 
self coming to receive them at the hour of death, 
might be relied on to the fullest possible extent. 

How real this makes the other world, and how 
near it brings it to us ! In the spirit of Paul's words 
we' can sing with James Montgomery: 

" Here in the body pent, 

Absent from him I roam, 
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent 
A day's march nearer home." 

And in the same spirit we may be comforted as well 
about our loved ones who have gone before. We 
can sing of them with Whittier: 

*' I have friends in the Spirit Land — 
Not shadows in a shadowy band, 

Not others but themselves are they. 
And still I think of them the same 
As when the Master's summons came." 



50 



The Motherhood of God 



Every true Christian heart ought to find pre- 
cious comfort in this brief study. If we give our- 
selves in complete surrender to Jesus Christ, we 
shall find that we are complete in him, and that 
both for this world and the next there is in him 
comfort for every sorrow and trouble that can touch 
or threaten our peace. There is an old rabbinical 
tradition which says that the manna in the wilder- 
ness tasted to every man just what he desired, of 
whatever dainty or nutriment he was most wistful; 
that the manna became hke the' magic cup in the 
old fairy legends, out of which could be poured any 
precious liquor at the pleasure of the man who was 
to drink it. Christ is like that to us. Whatever 
you need in comfort or blessing you may find in 
Jesus. He will be the inspiration of your joys, the 
strength of your hope, and your comJorter in time 
of sorrow and need. And when the white horse 
and his rider pause before your door to carry away 
your loved ones, you will find that the only real 
comforter is Je'sus. But you will also find that he 
is sufficient to your soul's need. 

Some years ago, Mr. Rossiter W. Raymond, on 
the death of a lovely Christian maiden, wrote a little 
poem entitled "Christus Consolator," which breathes 
the true' spirit of that perfect consolation which the 
reverent and trusting soul may find in Jesus: 

" Beside the dead I knelt for prayer 
And felt a Presence as I prayed. 
Lo ! it was Jesus standing there. 
He smiled : * Be not afraid !' 



The Recognition of Friends in Hea'ven 



* Lord, thou hast conquered death, we know ; 

Restore again to hfe,' I said, 
' This one who died an hour ago,' 
He smiled : ' She is not dead,' 

'Asleep then, as thyself didst say: 
Yet thou canst lift the lids that keep 

Her prisoned eyes from ours away !' 
He smiled : < She doth not sleep !' 

* Nay, then, tho' haply she do wake, 

And look upon some fairer dawn. 
Restore her to our hearts that ache !' 
He smiled : ' She is not gone !' 

*Alas ! too well we know our loss, 
Nor hope again our joy to touch. 

Until the stream of death we cross.' 
He smiled : ' There is no such !' 

* Yet our beloved seem so far, 

The while we yearn to feel them near. 
Albeit with thee we trust they are.' 
He smiled : 'And I am here !' 

' Dear Lord, how shall we know that they 
Still walk unseen with us and thee. 

Nor sleep, nor wander far away?' 
He smiled : 'Abide in Me !' " 



VI 



The Recognition of Friends on Earth 

"Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweet- 
ness of a man's friend by hearty counsel. Thine own friend, and thy 
father's friend, forsake not." — Proverbs xxvii, 9, 10. 

A GENTLEMAN was being entertained in a strange 
home recently, when, sitting on the porch, he saw 
a number of birds come down and alight on the 
edge of a large bucket of water by the well. Some 
of them drank, and then flew away; but some threw 
water over themselves, and then sat there preening 
their feathers and chirping happily. Then came two 
dogs, which took a drink and ran away. Afterwards 
he saw a cat come up to the bucket, and then a 
chicken. 

''Are all these pets of yours?" the gentleman 
asked of his hostess. 

''O no," said the lady; ''but we always keep that 
bucket well filled, and all the tired, thirsty birds and 
animals in the neighborhood come to it and seem 
very thankful for a drink and a bath." 

Now, I think it was that kind of a man, with his 
attention turned toward his fellows, that Isaiah had 
in mind when he declared that "a man shall be as 
an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the 
tempest ; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the 

52 



The Recognition of Friends on Earth 53 

shadow of a great rock in a weary land." The' Bible 
ideal of man is that he shall be a friendly creature — 
a man whose sympathy and kindness reach out on 
every side, helping everybody, and the sweetness of 
whose friendHness shall be Uke ointment and per- 
fume whose fragrance rejoices the heart. 

Some people are so busy looking after their dig- 
nity, and so afraid that some one will not pay due 
respect to the magnificent qualities with which they 
are endowed, that they lose the sweet comfort of 
friendship. Dignity does not stand very well, how- 
ever, in the Bible, while friendship has a high place. 

Dr. A. C. Dixon, years ago, in an Eastern city, 
told his official board one night that he felt it 
his duty to preach on the street. They received his 
message in silence ; and after the meeting was over, 
one of the' brethren took him aside and reasoned 
with him. "Pastor," said he, persuasively, "it will 
never do for you to preach on the street. It is un- 
dignified, and we must maintain our dignity." Dr. 
Dixon replied that he would look up the subject of 
dignity in his Bible, and report to him. The' study 
was, to the preacher, quite a revelation. He found 
that dignity was not mentioned among the Christian 
graces, nor is it one of the fruits of the Spirit. The 
only place' where it is spoken of with emphasis is 
v/here Solomon says, "Their folly is set in great 
dignity." What Solomon meant was, that any fool 
could be dignified. Any man who wants to may 
stick to dignity ; but I would rather have an ounce 
of the honey of a sincere, loving friendship than 
a thousand tons of starched-up dignity. 



54 



The Motherhood of God 



Many other people are so greedy to get together 
the goods of this world and store up money that 
they have no time for the gentle ministries of a true 
and loyal friendship. There could be no greater 
folly. Such people remind one of a little old woman 
who got on at a country station for her first journey 
on the railroad. The other passengers smiled as 
they watched while she settled herself and her be- 
longings as if she expected to travel around the 
world. A young relative who was with her called 
her attention to a beautiful view of the lake; but 
she was so busy with tucking a veil over her bonnet 
that she gave it scant notice. 

"Pretty soon, John. As soon as I get every- 
thing fixed all right, I 'm goin' to sit back and enjoy 
myself," she said. "I always have been lottin' on a 
ride in the cars." 

But her satchel, basket, and box were not easily 
arranged to her liking, and the forty-mile ride' was 
brief. 

"Already?" she exclaimed, as the name of her 
destination was called. "Why, I Ve hardly had a 
mite of pleasure from the journey yet ! If I 'd 
thought we were goin' to stop so soon, I would n't 
have wasted all my time fussin'." 

Of course, the passengers all laughed; yet no 
doubt some of them — and some of you — are' taking 
the whole of life's journey in very much the same 
fashion as this silly Httle old woman. You go rushing 
through the world in too great a hurry to amass 
money or achieve your purposes to permit you to 



The Recognition of Friends on Earth 55 

taste the sweetness of gentle friendship with your 
fellow-men. You think after awhile the time will 
come when you can be friendly; but there is where 
you are mistaken. You are letting all the' years go 
by during which friends can be easily made, and 
you are losing the very powers to charm and bless 
others; so that after awhile, if you should have a 
little time before you die ''to sit back and enjoy 
yourself," to use the old lady's expression, you will 
find that the art of enjoyment has never been culti- 
vated, and that the afternoon twilight of life is not 
the proper time in which to acquire it. The sweet- 
est blessings of life, if they are to be had at all, must 
be plucked day by day, while the blossoms are on 
the bushes. Life itself is like the wild rose-tree, 
about which Richard Watson Gilder sings : 

"On the wild rose-tree 
Many buds there be, 
Yet each sunny hour 
Hath but one perfect flower. 

Thou who wouldst be wise. 

Open wide thine eyes ; 

In each sunny hour 

Pluck the one perfect flower !" 

Friendship is a mutual affair, and we must give 
largely if we would receive largely. He who lives 
in the "house by the side of the road," as Sam Wal- 
ter Foss sings, and seeks to make sweeter and nobler 
the lives of all the passers-by, giving unstintedly of 
himself to their comfort, will receive in return large 



56 



The Motherhood of God 



measure, full to overflowing. Having given with- 
out stint, he will receive in the same way. Many 
rob themselves of the rich joys of friendship because 
the}^ fail to give expression to the friendly kind- 
ness and fellowship which is in their hearts. Many 
people keep the flowers until afte'r the friend is 
gone, and then 'heap them on the cofhn and the 
grave. I often go to funerals where I know that 
for years there' have been coldness and restraint 
and a cruel economy of kindly words and sympa- 
thetic care for one another's comfort and happiness, 
to find the coffin covered with a weight of roses 
and lilies and beautiful blossoms, indicating the love 
for the friend who has gone away that is in the hearts 
of those left behind. And I often say to myself, It 
would have been much better if these flowers had 
been distributed along the years, coming in now 
and then as little reminders at the close of a tired 
day or a weary week. Mary received a very sweet 
blessing from the lips of Jesus because she did not 
wait till after he was dead to break her box of fra- 
grant ointment, but brought it to him while he 
was alive. Surely the enthusiastic and loving words 
of Christ in return ought to encourage us to follow 
her happy example. Our friends will not need these 
words in heaven. There is no sorrow there. There, 
where people are never hungry, where there is no 
crying or tears, where nobody will ever say, ''I am 
sick," or, "I am tired," is no place for the kind and 
friendly expressions which would mean so much 
now to those who are climbing the up-hill path amid 
many discouragements and trials. Some one sings 



The RecogniUon of Friends on Earth 57 

a little song about saying ''The Loving Words Now," 
which may have its message of rebuke and inspira- 
tion for all of us : 

"Year after year, with a glad content, 
In and out of our home he went — 

In and out. 
Ever for us the skies were clear ; 
His heart carried the care and fear, 
The care and doubt. 

Our hands held with a careless hold 
All that he won of power and gold. 

In toil and pain. 
O, dear hands, that our burdens bore — 
Hands that shall toil for us no more — 

Never again. 

O, it was hard to learn our loss, 
Bearing daily the heavy cross — 

The cross he bore ; 
To say with aching heart and head, 
* Would to God that the love now dead 

Were here once more !' 

For when the love we held too light 

Was gone away from our speech and sight. 

No bitter tears, 
No passionate words of fond regret, 
No yearning of grief, could pay the debt 

Of thankless years. 

O, now, while diis kind love lingers near. 
Grudge not the tender words of cheer, 

Leave none unsaid ; 
For a heart can have no sadder fate 
Than some one day to awake — too late — 

And find love dead !" 

To be the kind of friend we ought to be to others 
we must ourselves rejoice in the luxury of the friend- 



58 The Motherhood of God 



ship of Jesus Christ. An old fable tells how a Per- 
sian moralist once took up in his hand a piece of 
scented clay, and said to it, "O clay, whence hast 
thou thy perfume?" And the clay said, "I was 
once a piece of common clay, but they laid me for 
a time in company with a rose, and I drank in its 
fragrance, and have now become' scented clay." So 
if we would have the rare perfume which makes 
friendship the sweetest human thing in all the world, 
we must lie in God's rose-garden, with our hearts 
close to the' Rose of Sharon, where we shall be 
pervaded through and through with the sweet fra- 
grance of heaven. 

One of the sweetest things in the Bible is that we 
are assured of Christ's longing for our frie'ndship. 
He says to the disciples, ''I have called you friends." 
He wants our friendship. He needs you and me. 
He longs to have us love him and open our hearts 
to him, and share with him, as friends do, all that is 
best in us and in himself. He tells us that if we are 
trying to do what pleases him we are his friends. 
John records one of his love speeches that each of 
us ought to commit to memory: "Greater love hath 
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for 
his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever 
I command you. Henceforth I call you not serv- 
ants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord 
doeth : but I have called you friends ; for all things 
that I have' heard of mv Father I have made known 
unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have 
chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go 
and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should re- 



The Recogniiton of Friends on Earth 59 

main: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father 
in my name, he may give it you. These things I 
command you, that ye' love one another." 

To-day Christ is calling you to this friendship. 
Many of you are his friends and rejoice in it; but 
some have always turned a deaf ear to his tender 
entreaties. Remember the condition is simply to 
keep his commandments, or, in other words, to do 
what will please him. That you can do here and 
now. He has declared that if you will confess him 
before men, it will so please him that he will con- 
fess you in heaven. Will you not, just now, accept 
and enter into the friendship of Jesus? 



VII 

Mutual Dependence of Humanity / 

"Every one members one of another." — Romans xii, 5. 

The: human body with its diversity of members 
all working together in harmony and fellowship to 
produce a common beneficent result was a favorite 
figure with Paul. He elaborates it at length in the' 
twelfth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians. 
He sets forth there that the Golden Rule is the law 
of the human body ; no part of the body is 
independent. No part can boycott or blacklist any 
other part without suf¥ering for it. No part of the 
body is able to set up for itself and say, "I am the 
only important member of the firm." 

**For the body is not one member, but many. If 
the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am 
not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? 
And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, 
I am not of the body ; is it not therefore' of the body ? 
If the whole' body were an eye, where were the hear- 
ing? If the whole were hearing, where were the 
smelling? But now hath God set the members every 
one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And 
if they were all one member, where were the body? 
But now are they many members, yet but one body. 

60 



Mutual Dependence of Humanity 6i 

And the eye can not say unto the hand, I have no 
need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have 
no need of you. Nay, much more those members 
of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are nec- 
essary; and those members of the body, which we 
think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow 
more abundant honor ; and our uncomely parts have 
more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts 
have no need: but God hath tempered the body to- 
gether, having given more abundant honor to that 
part which lacked: that there should be no schism 
in the body; but that the members should have the 
same care one for another. And whether one mem- 
ber suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one 
member be' honored, all the members rejoice 
with it." 

I have quoted the entire' illustration because there 
certainly is no better to be found to make clear to 
our minds the great truth of the' oneness of human- 
ity and of the fellowship which it is necessary for us 
to have one with another. As we go on in civili- 
zation, and life becomes more elaborate and com- 
plex, this mutual dependence is emphasized more and 
more. No man is so rich in our day but he must 
depend every hour of the day for his very life upon 
the fidelity of many humble people. The great rail- 
road magnate' may ride across the land in the night 
in his palatial private car on a special train and 
think himself independent ; but his life for that single 
night depends upon hundreds of telegraphers and 
switchmen and humble workmen whom he has never 
seen. Unless they work together with him in hon- 
5 



62 



The Motherhood of God 



est fellowship, his independence' would soon come 
to wreck and disaster. And so in every department 
of human life it is more true in our time than ever 
before that **no man liveth unto himself." The 
strong need the' weak, and the weak need the strong. 
Dives treated Lazarus with contempt, and left him 
to starve at his gate; but he impoverished his own 
soul in the doing of it. As another has well said, 
There is no other way by which society can be' held 
together save by the principle of mutual benevo- 
lence ministering to mutual dependence. The 
strong must bear the infirmities of the weak, or the 
universal order of creation would become chaotic 
and destructive; for the universe is peopled with 
weakness. If we look out on the hillside and forest 
and valley we find there are but few oaks, but very 
many are the rushes. Yet there is not a spire of 
grass, a bird, or a worm so low and meek but that 
it has its place and its part in God's universe. If 
the' strong should ignore the principle of love, the 
world would be swept back into the darkness. But 
the weak also help the strong. The grasses are nec- 
essary to the roots of the oak, or they will die. And 
so through all the orders of life", from trees to men, 
you will find that the humble things are needed by 
the proud and the lofty. The millionaire needs 
the workingman who carries his dinner-pail just as 
much as the workingman needs him. The branches 
of the tree need the soil as much as the soil needs 
the branches. Therefore, if a man is poor and have 
few talents, it is not wise or true for him to say : "I am 
of no use. If I had talents or money or knowle'dge or 
power I might help people." For however small and 



Muittat Dependence of Humanity 63 



lacking, there is a place for every one of us where 
we may help to bless the world. If we can not be' 
great trees, then we can be grasses, and know that 
the grasses are as necessary to the world's beauty 
as the' trees. \^'' 

At the outbreak of the Civil War there were 
many sturdy men among the farmers in the North 
who could hardly be spared from their farms, who, 
nevertheless, thought it their duty to go and fight 
for their country. One day about this time a gentle- 
man was going along the highway, and he saw a 
small boy at the plow. He asked how it was that 
he was obliged to do work that was not the work 
of a Httle boy at all, but of a grown man. "Well, 
you see, sir," said the boy, "father 's fighting and 
mother 's praying and I 'm working. We are all 
doing what we can." That boy was a Christian 
philosopher. He' knew that for every one to fit 
into the thing he could do was the right way to get 
all the necessary work done. 

Dr. Talmage declares that the Christian reHgion 
is a democratic religion. It makes the owner of 
the! mill understand he is a brother to all the oper- 
atives in that mill. The religion of Jesus Christ 
came to rectify all the wrongs of the world, and it 
will yet settle all these troublesome questions betwe'en 
labor and capital. When the Christian leaven has 
fully done its work, the hard hand of the wheel and 
the soft hand of the counting-room will clasp each 
other in happy congratulation. The hard hand will 
say, "I plowed the desert into a garden." The soft 
hand will reply, "I furnished the seed." The one 
will say, "I threshed the mountains." The other 



64 



The Motherhood of God 



will say, "I paid for the flail." The one hand will 
say, "I hammered the spear into a pruning-hook." 
The other hand will answer, "I signed the treaty of 
peace that made that possible." Then capital and 
labor will lie down together, and there will be 
nothing to hurt and destroy in all God's earth. Let 
every man and woman of us be' doing our part to 
bring about that happy day ! 

Now, all this is peculiarly appropriate when ap- 
plied to the Christian Church. Paul's teaching is 
that Christ is the Head of the body, which is his 
Church. We are members in particular of this great 
body of Christ. Just as my right hand is kin to my 
left hand, and both of them are in fellowship and 
sympathy with my eyes and my feet, because they 
are all members of the same body, so we are mem- 
bers one of another in the body of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

A keen appreciation of this great truth will surely 
save us from envy or contempt ; for if any member 
of Christ's Church is gifted and useful and happy, 
then I must have something from it. Can you imag- 
ine the flowers in a beautiful bouquet being depressed 
because' of the beauty of others ? Shall the lily mourn 
because of the beautiful coloring of the rose ? Shall 
the rose be sad because' the carnation is so fragrant? 
Rather, shall not each one of them rejoice that the 
other is so beautiful ? The beauty of one does not de- 
tract from the other, and the' diversity of beauty 
brought together adds to the common worth and 
beauty of the bouquet. 

Shall Paul be sad because John is so loving? 



Mutual Dependence of Humanity 



65 



Shall John have the blues because Paul is such a 
bright, courageous spirit, shaking off all opposition 
as he shook that island snake into the' fire after the 
shipwreck? Shall either of them feel badly because 
Stephen had the face of an angel in the midst of per- 
secution? Ah, no! The' love of one, the joyous 
courage of another, and the angelic peace of the third 
is a common heritage of Christian beauty and glory 
which may add to the rejoicing of all. Let us thank 
God for every spiritual gift he has bestowed upon 
any member of the Church, and by admiring its 
beauty, by breathing its fragrance, be ourselves pro- 
voked to good works. 

On the other hand, a proper insight into this 
great spiritual theme, revealing our relation to one 
another, must save' us from indifference or contempt 
for our weaker and frailer brethren and sisters. For 
no member of the body can suffer but that all others 
must suffer with it. If the tooth ache, does not the 
whole body suffer? If there be a felon on the finger, 
does not the whole body suffer? If there be a sore 
foot, does not the whole body suffer? If there be a 
cinder in the eye, does not the whole body suffer with 
it? We are members one of another in the Church 
in a relation as sensitive as is the human body, and 
one can not fall into sin or sorrow but the whole 
Church must suffer, and every one must lose some- 
thing of spiritual comfort and strength through the 
loss that has come to the brother that has fallen. 

The Church as a whole gets its power through 
this combined harmony and fellowship uniting in 
loyal devotion to Jesus Christ. Dr. Lyman Abbott 



66 



The Motherhood of God 



compares the unifying of the Church for power to 
the charging of an electric battery. The chemist 
mixes his various elements together and the con- 
ditions are fulfilled ; electricity is there. He does not 
summon electricity from some remote distance; but 
already dormant in these elements was the electric 
power, and when they are combined, instantly the 
electric power springs into existence. So it is as if 
Christ said to us : "In each one of you Christians there 
is a dormant power. I am in you ; but there is more 
of me in all of you together than there is in any one 
of you separately and individually; and when you 
have combined around my banner and my name to 
do my will, there springs into existence not merely 
the strength that comes from union, but the diviner 
help that comes from this, that I am in the midst of 
that organization, the Spirit that inspires the body." 
It becomes at once more than human — it becomes 
divine the body of Christ. 



VIII 

The Beauty and the Glory of Helpfulness 

** They helped every one his neighbor ; and every one said to his 
brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the gold- 
smith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smiteth the 
anvil, saying of the soldering. It is good." — IsAlAH XLI, 6, 7 (Rev. 
Ver.) 

ThS keynote contention of Christian civilization 
is that the supreme purpose of a man's life should be 
ministry instead of mastery. The old standard of 
selfishness judged greatness by its power to dictate 
to others. The new ideal set up by Jesus Christ calls 
him greatest who is the greatest helper of his fel- 
lows. A man is not to be considered of vast impor- 
tance because it takes a large number of people to 
bear his burdens for him, but rather because he is 
able to bear the burdens of many who are weaker 
than himself. 

It is not, however, my purpose to speak at this 
time of the occasional giants of the race who bare 
their shoulders with heroism and love to carry the' 
burdens of a nation or a people ; but to speak of the 
common every-day helpfulness which is witnessed in 
average human life, and which is to be seen more 
and more as the years go on. For I believe helpful- 
ness is a good deal more common than the average 

67 



68 



The Motherhood of God 



one among us appreciates. It is so much easier to 
take note of the selfish, cruel act than it is of the little 
deed of self-denying kindness which is so common 
and so expected in this gentler age^ in which we are 
living, that the latter often passes unnoticed. 

I have been impressed with a story, told recently, 
of a large, powerful man who had jostled and fought 
his way through the crowd at the entrance to the 
Brooklyn bridge, and was scowling fiercely as he 
pushed out a big dent in his hat. Seated next to 
him in the bridge-car was a man who had an office 
in the' same building. The stout man pointed to the 
battered hat and said: ''1 beHeve men — and women, 
too, for that matter — are no better than savages. 
It 's every one for himself. There is n't a day passes 
but that I see something which convinces me civil- 
ization is only skin deep." 

''I 'm afraid you see only one side of it," replied 
his neighbor. ''There are lots of good things to be 
seen every day, too. Now, here is something that 
gives me a good deal of happiness during the year." 

He pulled a small note-book from an inside 
pocket. Then he went on: "I used to feel as you 
do — that people are very selfish ; but when I began to 
study them more closely I saw so many pleasant 
things that I got in the habit of making notes of them, 
and so I carry this little book. Here 's what I have 
jotted down to-day, for instance: On my way to the 
bridge this morning my hat blew ofif. I chased it, 
but before I reached it three other men were after 
it, and one of them caught it for me. Now, that was 
an entirely unselfish act on the part of these men, who 



The Beauty and the Glory of Helpfulness 69 

were strangers to me; and you may see the same 
thing any windy day. As I was crossing City Hall 
Park a woman in front of me dropped a glove with- 
out knowing it. Two boys made a dive for it, and 
shouted, Xady, lady, you Ve dropped your glove.' 
Just as I reached Broadway a truckman's horse fell. 
The driver had hardly left his seat before the drivers 
of three other trucks stopped, got down, and began 
to help raise the' horse. They did it because they 
saw a fellow-workman in trouble, and knew that they 
might need the same help at any time. When I went 
out to luncheon I left my umbrella in the restaurant. 
Before I reached the door a stranger who had been 
sitting at the same table tapped me on the shoulder 
and handed me the umbrella. On my way back to 
the office I passed a heavy two-horse load of flour 
stuck on the car-track. I stopped a minute to look, 
and saw several men put their hands to the muddy 
wheels and push till the dray started. They had no 
selfish interest in that load of flour ; they only wanted 
to help. When I entered the office building the man 
just ahead of me' carefully held the big door so that 
it might not swing back in my face." 

Now all these are Httle things, but they sliow 
something very dif¥erent from savagery, and they can 
be duplicated in kind by every one of us almost any 
day we live'. And none of us are surprised that the 
man who had been listening to all this dropped a pace 
behind his neighbor as they went down the stairs at 
the other end of the bridge, and, as his custom was, 
picked out the most ragged newsboy he could see to 
hand his newspaper to, so that the little fellow could 



70 



The Motherhood of God 



make an extra penny out of it. We shall find a great 
deal of brotherline'ss, and neighborly kindness, and 
sweet unselfishness if we are on the lookout. Some 
one sings : 

'* Not all the saints are canonized ; 

There's lots of them close by, 
There's some of them in my own ward, 

Some in my family. 
They're thick here in my neighborhood, 

They throng here in my street ; 
My sidewalk has been badly worn 

By their promiscuous feet. 

Not all the heroes of the world 

Are apotheosized ; 
Their names make our directories 

Of very ample size. 
And almost every family, 

"Whose number is complete, 
Have one or more about the board 

When they sit down to eat. 

Not all the martyrs of the world 

Are in the martyrology ; 
Not all their tribe became extinct 

In some remote chronology. 
Why weep for saints long dead and gone? 

There 're plenty still to meet ; 
Put on your wraps and call upon 

The saints upon your street." 

The beginning of helpfulness is in an appreciation 
of the condition and deeds of others. If we look at 
our fellow men and women about us with a kindly 
and sympathetic eye, seeking to take them at their 
best, giving them credit not for their worst but for 



The Beauiy and the Glory of Helpfulness 71 

their best, we shall help very much the happiness of 
the world. 

Arthur Turner, one of the' foremost of England's 
younger artists, claims that he owes his opportunity 
to become an artist to a single happy stroke of his 
pencil. The young boy was an apprentice in a tin- 
ner's shop in a cathedral town, and on Sundays he 
sang in one of the chapels of the cathedral. One day 
when the service was dull to the boy he drew a pic- 
ture on the fly-leaf of a music-book, and forgot to 
erase it before the time came for singing. The rector 
of the church, seeing the sketch, considered it his 
duty to speak with him about it. After giving him 
a gentle rebuke' for defacing the book, he compli- 
mented the young artist on his skill, and suggested 
that he ought to become an art student. "Suppose," 
he added, "you make a portrait of myself as I appear 
to you. If you succeed, I will not only buy the pic- 
ture, but will assist to secure for you a scholarship 
in one of the Royal Art schools." 

The picture was made during the next week, and 
the young tinner went with fear and trembling to the 
rectory to show his work and learn his fate, for his 
interest had become thoroughly aroused in the pro- 
posed scholarship. 

The rector was a man of fine form and noble face, 
except that his nose was about half an inch longer 
than was required in order to make a beautiful com- 
bination with the rest of his countenance. It was 
quite commonly known that this extra half-inch of 
nose was a great trial to the good rector. 

In drawing the face of his pastor, the kind-hearted 



72 



The Moinerhood of God 



boy had corrected nature's error. The uncalled-for 
half-inch of nose was safely and tenderly removed. 
The face' then appeared exactly as the subject 
would have desired to look. 

That the friendly act of the young artist was jus- 
tifiable the rector did not question. He pronounced 
the work admirable, and hung it in his study. He 
said to himself that a youth possessing such talent 
and wisdom ought to be encouraged to develop his 
powers. He' interested himself in sending the lad 
to one of the great art schools of England. From 
that day Turner's fame grew, and to-day he is head 
master of the Royal Art school at York, England. 
Recently, referring to his beginnings in art, he play- 
fully characterized that first portrait as a thoroughly 
successful operation in surgery, and the happiest 
stroke of his life. 

Now this incident should suggest a great fact. 
We ought not always to be looking out for flaws in 
people, or in the conditions of life ; but rather seek 
to encourage those Vv^ho are ready to faint, and soften 
and mollify the trying circumstances with which peo- 
ple have to do. 

"Don't look for flaws as you go through life ; 

And even when you find them 
It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind 

And look for the virtue behind them. 
For the cloudiest night has a hint of the hght 

Somewhere in its shadows hiding; 
It is better by far to hunt for a star 

Than the spots on the sun abiding. 



The Beauty and the Glory of Helpfulness 73 



The current of life runs ever away 

To the bosom of God's great ocean ; 
Don't set your force 'gainst the river's course 

And think to alter its motion. 
Don't viraste a curse on the universe 

Remember, it lived before you. 
Don't butt at the storm with your puny form, 

But bend and let it fly o'er you. 

The world wiU never adjust itself 

To suit your whim to the letter ; 
Something must go wrong your whole life long, 

And the sooner you know it the better. 
It is folly to fight with the Infinite, 

And go under at last in the wrestle. 
The wiser man shapes into God's plan 

As the water shapes into the vessel." 

Words of good cheer are peculiarly in harmony 
with Christian civilization. A phrase which was often 
on the lips of Jesus was, "Be of good cheer!" We 
should follow his example, and be ever alert and 
ready to speak the word or do the deed that will en- 
courage the weary and the tired to take up their bur- 
den with stronger purpose, and carry it forward 
with nobler hope. Cheerfulness gets more out of 
men than scolding ; hope, not despair, puts nerve into 
tired limbs. Many an honest worker has dropped 
by the wayside for lack of appreciation. It often 
means more' than a man dreams to say of a man's 
work as the goldsmith of our text did to the black- 
smith, "It is a good job." It is strange we do not 
speak such words more frequently, when they cost 
so little, and give such rich returns in helpful joy. 



74 



The Motherhood of God 



I think one reason we do not more promptly seize 
opportunities for helpfulness is that we do not 
feel as we ought the true neighborliness of human 
life. Dr. Robert ColWer, of New York, was once a 
popular pastor in Chicago. It was some years ago, 
but he had it recalled in a pleasant way last summer. 
He was in London, and as he went down the Strand 
on a hot day he saw a place where American soda- 
water was advertised. The clerk gave' him some, and 
smiled at him. The doctor smiled back and smacked 
his lips, it was so good. When he had finished one 
glass he said, "Give me another." The clerk smiled 
at him again as he gave it to him, and the preacher 
smiled back. After he had finished the second glass 
he said, "How much ?" The clerk replied, "Nawthin' ; 
I know you ; I come from Chicago." What we want 
is to make that feeling of neighborliness stretch all 
around God's green earth, until m.en and women 
everywhere shall feel its appeal to brotherly sympathy 
and fellowship. 

The pastor of St. Paul's Church, in the city of 
Washington, has for many years been collecting sil- 
ver and gold and jewels to make a superb chalice. 
The jewels consist of about two hundred pearls, a 
large number of diamonds, many rubies, and other 
rare stones, coming from several hundred donors. 
There are nuggets of gold and silver, coins and jew- 
elry, many of them old family relics with, a history 
tragic or pathetic. Some are heirlooms handed down 
for generations in old families. Some of them have 
flashed their beauty in the courts of the Old World, 
and others were worn by fair dames during the stir- 



The Beauty and the Glory of Help fulness 75 

ring times of the Revolution. One magnificent gift, 
a diamond cross, will be placed on the front of the 
chalice, retaining its exquisite setting. There are 
diamonds and pearls that have' adorned happy brides, 
and reflected the tears of the bereaved; tiny rings 
and bracelets worn by the dead children of lonely 
mothers ; gems symboHc of love, and souvenirs of 
brave men who have given their lives in defense of 
the Stars and Stripes, among the last being a gold 
pencil taken from the body of a soldier in the Mex- 
ican War ; little mementos given by the widows and 
orphans of soldiers in the Civil War; gold nuggets 
and coins taken from ships sunk in the Spanish- 
American War, and a ring from the hand of a volun- 
teer who shed his blood on the battlefield of Santiago 
de Cuba. It is rarely that so many silent witnesses 
of tears and smiles are gathered together. Each has 
been dear to some' heart, and the owners with relig- 
ious devotion have given them to adorn the chalice 
which will be used daily in the solemn services of the 
Church. 

Brothers, sisters, life itself is the great sacrament, 
and it is for us to make it romantic, heroic, holy, 
by bringing into it day by day the jewels of tender- 
ness and love, the heroism of self-sacrifice in behalf 
of the weak and the defeated, the true gold of broth- 
erly sympathy, the white' silver of our kindness, 
the diamonds of good cheer, the pearls of appreci- 
ation, and cheerfully make our contribution to the 
good-will and happiness of human life. God will melt 
it down in the daily furnace of experience ; he will 
mold it and fashion it, and in that brotherly, helpful 



76 



The Motherhood of God 



co-operation the Holy Supper will be kept indeed. 
I call you all this day to this beautiful life' of help- 
fulness. 

"There are so many helpful things to do 

Along life's way 
(Helps to the helper, if we did but know), 

From day to day ! 
So many troubled hearts to soothe. 
So many pathways rough to smooth. 
So many comforting words to say 
To the hearts that falter along the way. 

Here is a lamp of hope gone out 

Along the way. 
Some one stumbled and fell, no doubt — 

But, brother, stay! 
Out of thy store of oil refill ; 
Kindle the courage that smolders still ; 
Think what Jesus would do to-day 
For one who had fallen beside the way. 

How many lifted hands still plead 

Along life's way! 
The old, sad story of human need 

Reads on for aye. 
But let us follow the Savior's plan — 
Love unstinted to every man ! 
Content if, at most, the world should say: 
*He helped his brother along the way.' " 



IX 



A Reasonable Religion 

Your reasonable service." — Romans xii, i. 

PauIv was a very sane man. He never went at 
things in a haphazard way. He was always ready to 
give a reason for the faith that was in him. He was 
also a well-rounded man. With him faith and prac- 
tice went together. One of the grandest things he 
ever said about himself was when, standing before 
King Agrippa, he declared, ''I have not been dis- 
obedient unto the heavenly vision." If Paul saw in 
the night a man of Macedonia appealing to him, the 
next day his face was turned that way. First the 
vision, then the life'. 

All these traits of Paul's character are illustrated 
in this letter to the Romans. The first eleven chap- 
ters are given to a discussion of the gre'at Christian 
doctrines. Step by step, with steady tread, Paul 
climbs to the high ground of Christian faith. He 
begins this letter by declaring in the very first chap- 
ter that he' is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, 
because it is the power of God unto salvation to 
every one that believeth. And then he sets to work 
to tell the story of Christ's mediatorial work for sin- 
ners, and to explain and illustrate it. With great 
6 77 



78 



The Motherhood of God 



clearness he sets forth the sinner's desperate need of 
a Savior. Sin had come into the world ; it had tainted 
the race ; death had passed upon all men, and then 
Jesus Christ came and was born under the law, that 
he might save those that were under the law. And 
Paul declares that just so far as sin has run in the 
human race, the' cleansing blood of Christ runs with 
saving power, able to save unto the uttermost them 
that come unto God by him. He sets forth the resur- 
rection of Jesus Christ, and is himself a witness to 
Christ after he has been clothed upon with immor- 
tality. He shows forth the extent and the glory of 
Christ's salvation as being offered both to the Jew 
and the Greek, to the bond and the free', and unfolds 
one after another all the great doctrines of grace unto 
salvation. 

It is upon this great foundation of fact and faith 
and hope, which he has been building through eleven 
chapters, that the apostle plants his feet as he begins 
to write the twelfth chapter. How much it makes 
this word "therefore" mean! "I beseech you there- 
fore, brethren, by the mercies of God." The word 
''therefore" is a connecting link between the great 
Christian doctrines which Paul has been setting forth 
and the Christian life to which he now calls them. 
And not only this chapter, but the rest of the entire 
letter is given up to the most earnest exhortation 
to right living. It is as though Paul said, "Therefore, 
brethren, because man was a poor lost sinner sunk 
deep in the mire, despairing and without hope, and 
God so loved him in his lost estate that he gave the 
Lord Jesus Christ to come to earth and share his 



A Reasonable Religion 



79 



temptations and trials, and die on the cross in his 
behalf, and go down into the grave and come up 
out of it again, having burst the bonds of death ; and 
because Christ ever lives as the Savior and Redeemer 
of sinners ; and because this message is to all men, 
not to the Jews only, but to the Gentiles ; therefore, 
brethren, by the mercies of God, present your bodies 
a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable service." 

When men are' called to a religious Hfe as dis- 
ciples of Jesus Christ, they are not called to anything 
strange or unnatural. God's mercy and love have 
been so great, and have been manifested so tenderly, 
that it is not an unreasonable thing for us in return 
to give ourselves to whole-hearted service of the 
Lord. Gratitude for great gifts or great service is 
the most reasonable thing in the world. Everybody 
feels that nothing is more wicked and unnatural than 
ingratitude. When we see a child who has received 
kind and loving ministry from a father or a mother 
throughout its whole life until it has grown into man- 
hood or womanhood, and then treats with harshness 
or indifference and neglect the parent who has be- 
come old, or weak, or poor, we are stirred to the very 
quick at the sight, because we feel that such ingrati- 
tude is not only base and wicked, but unnatural. 
And so Paul feels that it is very unnatural for. one 
to remember the goodness of God, his great mercy 
in giving Christ to be our Savior, and not respond 
in the most earnest and practical gratitude in the 
giving of the body — that is, of the whole self — a living 
sacrifice unto him. In another place Paul has ex- 
plained this as most reasonable since we are not our 



8o 



The Motherhood of God 



own. We were the slaves of sin; but we have been 
bought by the blood of Christ, and belong naturally 
and by right to him who has purchased us. And it is 
but reasonable that unto him who hath redeemed us 
from the' dread despair of guilt and sin we should 
respond with a love and affection which will show 
forth in every act of our daily lives. 

When the late Earl Cairns was a little boy he 
heard three words which made a remarkable im- 
pression on him, "God claims you !" Then came the 
question, "What am I going to do with the claim?" 
He answered, "I will own it, and give myself to God." 
He went home and told his mother, "God claims me." 
At school and college his motto was, "God claims 
me." As member of Parliament, and finally as Lord 
Chancellor, it was still "God claims me." When he 
was appointed Lord Chancellor he was a teacher of 
a large' Bible-class, and his minister, thinking now 
that he would have no time to devote to that pur- 
pose, said to him, "I suppose you will now require 
to give up your class ?" "No," was the reply, "I will 
not; God claims me." 

So God claims every one of us, and his claim is 
just and reasonable, and the most interesting prob- 
lem in your life and mine is, "What response am I 
making to God's claim?" 

In the most unexpected places we are called upon 
to answer in regard to God's claim on us. When 
General Grant was in Paris the President of the 
French Republic, as a special token of respect, in- 
vited him to a place on the grand stand to witness the 
horse-racing which occurs in that country on Sun- 



A Reasonable Retigion 



8i 



day. It is considered a discourteous act to decline 
such an invitation from the head official of the' Re- 
public. Such a thing had never been heard of; but 
General Grant, in a polite note, declined the honor, 
and said to the French President, "It is not in accord- 
ance with the custom of my country, or with the' 
spirit of my religion, to spend Sunday in that way." 
And when Sabbath came that great hero found his 
way to the American chapel, where he was one of the 
quiet worshipers. That was a noble recognition of 
God's claim and an exhibition of a species of back- 
bone of religious faith and purpose that is very 
greatly needed in our own time and in our own 
country. 

Governor Theodore Roosevelt, of New York, said 
a great thing the other day when he declared that 
"One individual who is not entitled to exist in a 
community like ours is the timid good man." Mr. 
Roosevelt says we need citizens of the type of Oliver 
Cromwell, who once said: "If I were to choose any 
servant, the meanest officer for the Commonwealth, 
I would choose a godly man who had principles, es- 
pecially where a trust is to be committed, because I 
know where to have' a man that hath principles." 
xA.nd we need men to-day with principles that are held 
to the bed-rock by the conviction that they are God's 
men and must live up to his demands. 

Thank God, there are' some such men ! A friend 
recently told me of a man, a wholesale merchant, 
who was notified by a firm that had dealt largely with 
him in the past, that they could not continue to do 
business with him unless he changed his attitude 



82 



The Motherhood of God 



toward the liquor-traffic. It happened that the whole- 
sale merchant had been a very active temperance 
man. When this word came, he straightened him- 
self up and looked the agent full in the eyes and said, 
"Go tell your firm, with my compliments, that it is 
my goods, and not my principles, which are for sale." 
If every man in the Christian Church had a backbone 
Hke that, born of conscientious consecration to 
Christ in recognition of the mercies of God, we 
would have enough leaven of Christian force to rap- 
idly revolutionize modern civilization, not only in 
business and in society, but in politics as well. 

It is w^ell to notice that Paul's idea of religion was 
that it w^as a vital, earnest, living experience. It is a 
living sacrifice to which he calls these people, not a 
dead sacrifice from Vv^hich the blood of human feel- 
ing and sensation has been let out. According to 
Paul's idea, we are not to approach the perfect life 
by hiding ourselves away, even though we hide under 
an altar; but by thro^^dng ourselves into the thick 
of the human struggle as the living soldiers of Jesus 
Christ. 

There is a French painting called *Xa Religieuse," 
meaning ''The Religious Woman." And this picture 
gives the idea of a religious woman which was held 
by the old Roman Church. The artist has painted a 
nun who spends her time in replenishing the oil in a 
lamp that is burning before the image of the Virgin 
Mary. Not the faithful wife and the joyful mother 
of children is portrayed, but the woman who spends 
her whole time in replenishing the oil in the lighted 
lamp before the dead image ! No wonder that the last 



A Reasonable Religion 



83 



religious census in France tells of eight millions of 
men who entered themselves as of no reHgion ! It is 
a live Christianity that we want, and a live Chris- 
tianity comes from live Christians. 

And the sacrifice that God asks of us is not some- 
thing that we give to him once, and then look back 
to it as a finished experience ; but a sacrifice that is 
new and different with every morning sunrise and 
every noonday struggle. Hugh Price Hughes, speak- 
ing to a company of young ministers who had just 
been ordained, said that when he was a young man 
the're was a curious expression often repeated (you 
and I have often heard it repeated), that we ought to 
preach the gospel ''as dying men to dying men." 
Mr. Hughes says he never liked it; there was some- 
thing melancholy about it, although it meant well; 
and he suggests that we substitute this, "Let us 
preach as living men to living men, our message' con- 
cerning the living Christ." The charm of a Christian 
life is in this living sensitiveness of the soul that rec- 
ognizes God's claim and responds to it with grati- 
tude, giving a whole-hearted devotion. When that 
breath of life is out, the magnetic charm disappears. 

A re'cent writer tells how he once heard Wendell 
Phillips give one of his noted lectures, which had 
every quality that goes to make up high excellence 
except one. The subject of the lecture was interest- 
ing, for it was Daniel O'Connell, the Irish agitator. 
The speaker evidently had been greatly interested in 
the subject when, many years before, he had written 
the lecture, for he was at that time himself the lead- 
ing New England agitator. The lecture was well 



84 



The Motherhood of God 



written; it abounded in striking rhetorical passages, 
and it was delivered with that grace of gesture and 
ease and beauty of utterance which gave' Phillips the 
foremost place among the platform speakers of his 
day. But the truth was that the lecture, in spite of 
its faultless structure and nearly faultless delivery, 
was a flat failure as an utterance about an agitator. 
It did not agitate. Not a pulse in that audience was 
quickened by it. The speaker had lost interest in his 
subject, and he could not create in his hearers an in- 
terest which was not present in his own soul. He 
had been interested in the subject years before, but 
at the time when this gentleman heard him he was a 
man well advanced in years, the night was stormy, 
the audience was small, he was lecturing to fulfill a 
contract, and there was not a flash of fresh enthusi- 
asm in the entire' lecture. So far as the earnest, fiery, 
enthusiastic oratory of his early anti-slavery days was 
concerned, it was almost a post-mortem utterance. 
It did not thrill the soul with the electric power of 
contemporary enthusiasm. 

Now this may well illustrate the loss of fresh 
enthusiasm and of vital, living, spiritual ear- 
nestness in a Christian life. If Wendell Phil- 
lips had suddenly been confronted v/ith some 
live oppression, with some earnest struggle for 
liberty that would have aroused the' old spirit 
that was in his blood when first he made that 
lecture on Daniel O'Connell, the lost fire would have 
come back to his eye, and the charm of that blood- 
earnestness which glorified him in his best days would 
have been felt by the audience. So the sacrifice which 



A Reasonable Religion 



85 



we make to God, the service which we render him 
in response to his great mercies toward us, must be 
a Hving service. It must be vital with every day's 
meditation; it must be quickened and refreshed by 
daily communion ; it must renew its youth in incidents 
of service daily given, in new helpfulness toward the 
suffering, in an outstretched hand to the weak, and 
in earnest effort to rescue those in the bondage of 
sin. Time has no power to take' the flash from the 
Christian's eye, to take the holy glow from his cheek, 
to take the magnetic love from his heart, if he gives 
himself entirely and whole-heartedly to this accept- 
able and reasonable service to God. 



The Perils of Egotism 



For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is 
among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think ; 
but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the 
measure of faith." — Romans xii, 3. 

The: figure used in this case suggests the unwis- 
dom of an intoxicated man. Paul urges his readers 
to think soberly ; that is, not to have' the exaggerated 
ideas of a man who is drunk with wine. The man 
whose head is turned with strong drink often has very 
large ideas of his own strength, or his own ability to 
accomplish things, and he is led into many foolish 
sayings and actions because of these drunken esti- 
mate's of himself. 

But a man may be intoxicated on something be- 
sides liquor ; pride and vanity may inflate the thought 
so that a man may cherish opinions concerning his 
own abilities as erroneous as he would have if he' 
were a drunkard. 

No teaching here indicates that it is not proper 
and right for every one of us to have a fair and just 
idea of our own powers. It is impossible for us not 
to form an estimate of our mental and moral quali- 
ties, as we do of our physical qualities, and it is per- 
fectly right. If a man has a farm, and proposes to get 

86 



The Perth of Egotbm 



87 



liis living by tilling it, it is certainly the' part of wis- 
dom for him to know his farm thoroughly. He 
should know the different kinds of soil on both the 
high and the low lands, and should know where the 
soil is shallow, as well as were it is deep and rich. 
All this is necessary in order that he may till it to 
the' best advantage, and produce the most profitable 
crops. So our nature is our farm to be tilled, and 
it is imperative that we have a wise and comprehen- 
sive estimate of our own abilities, so that we shall 
do our work well, and make the very be'st of our- 
selves. 

Our peril is that when we come to measure our- 
selves we are likely to measure our pride' and our 
feeHngs, and not to measure our real abilities in a 
sober, matter-of-fact way, such as we would use if 
we were' forming a judgment on some one else. We 
are likely to judge ourselves and esteem ourselves 
as greatly enhanced in value for reasons which in 
judging another we would at once' throw out of the 
scales as of no importance. As a matter of theory 
we know that honesty and truth, a clear sense of jus- 
tice, a purpose to do right under all circumstances, 
genuine brotherliness, are' the great foundation- 
stones of manhood. We know that these are of just 
the same value in a poor man as in a rich man, are 
of just as much value in one who has a commonplace, 
ordinary position as in one who has an exalted place 
of great influence and power. We know very well 
that these great fundamentals of noble character 
weigh just as much in heaven's scales when they are 
found in a man who has been unfortunate and unsuc- 



88 



The Motherhood of God 



cessful in the ordinary avocations where men seek 
success, as when found in those who have reached 
the highest round of the ladder in their business or 
profession. But how hard it is to hold ourselves to 
that kind of judgment ! ' If we have had a little meas- 
ure of success, and have pushed ourselves a little 
above the level of those who started out with us, 
how easy it is to feel that it is because of some su- 
periority in our mental or moral caliber ! The qual- 
ities by which we have won seem to be of a finer type 
than in the days of our humble beginning, and they 
seem to be of a much higher grade than those of our 
competitors in the race who have not gotten along 
so fast, 

Mr. Beecher, speaking of self-conceit in morals, 
says that there are those who are scrupulous in at- 
taining good morals and refinement, but who con- 
vert that which they attain in these directions into 
selfishness. They take themselves, by their culture 
and refinement, out of the fundamental elements of 
sympathy and love which are indispensable to Chris- 
tian life. As the cream abandons the milk from which 
it took its life, and rises to the top, and rides there, 
so men, because they are richer in money or culture 
than those round about them, rise and separate them- 
selves, and all mankind below them they regard as 
skim-milk. They think they themselves are cream ! 
How many persons there are who are not made bet- 
ter, but worse, by being made finer ! 

Refinement should make a man finer, not simply 
in thought and in imagination, but in sensibility, so 
that he can bear with people who are not fine; so 



The Perils of Egotism 



89 



that he feels that there is a golden cord of attach- 
ment springing up between him and every man who 
has not been blessed with all his opportunities and 
privileges. It is a sad thing to see people who have 
been so hedged about by culturing influences that 
they have come to such a position, such a standard of 
moral living, that they would spurn an evil story, 
would scorn a salacious book, have no temptation to 
vice and crime, and yet in proportion as they have 
grown in culture of manhood or womanhood have 
become cold and exclusive and selfish. And it is 
very refreshing now and again to find men who have 
had all the opportunities to enrich and strengthen 
their manhood, and yet have kept their heads level 
in measuring themselves, and have not allowed any 
of the accidental things of life to separate between 
them and their fellows. 

Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt seems to have been a 
man of the latter character. Although he was one 
of the richest men in the world, in these' days when 
the possession of large wealth provokes envy and 
misrepresentation and malice, he, as has been well 
said, so far succeeded in disarming this spirit that 
thousands of men who worked on his railroads, carry- 
ing their dinner-pails with them day after day, re- 
garded his death as a personal loss. That is the best 
possible tribute not only to his goodness, but to his 
wisdom as a man and a Christian. 

Still, as has been pointed out frequently since his 
death, Mr. Vanderbilt never gave away anything like 
the sums of money which some other men of our 
time have given. It is interesting to note how it 



90 



The Motherhood of God 



happens that he succeeded in escaping the ordinary 
criticism and envy directed against rich men, and 
though he lived generously, and made no attempt not 
to make a display of great wealth, was regarded by 
the great multitudes of working people as the friend 
and not the enemy of wage-earners. The reason cer- 
tainly must be in the fact that Mr. Vanderbilt did not 
"think of himself more highly than he ought to 
think;" that is, he did not feel that because he made 
a donation to a church, or the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association, or a hospital, or some other benevo- 
lence, that he was thereby released from personal 
duty in the matter. He did not feel that he was per- 
sonally so much better than other men that he need 
not trouble himself with the burdens and cares of his 
fellows ; instead, he gave himself with his money to 
help every good cause that touched his heart and 
conscience'. It was that that gave him his influence 
with all classes of men. It costs a man who has a 
good many millions of dollars far less to give a hun- 
dred thousand dollars to a good cause than it does 
a man with ten or twelve hundred dollars a year to 
give a five-dollar bill. With one man it is the mere 
matter of writing a check and a temporary reduction 
of his bank account. There is no personal self-denial 
brought about by the gift. But with the man who 
gives the five dollars there is often real self-sacrifice. 
Now men feel that. And it doe's not greatly stir the 
people when a man worth a hundred millions gives 
one or two hundred thousand dollars, or even a 
million dollars, to benevolence. But when in ad- 
dition to his money he gives his time and thought 



The Perils of Egotism 



9^ 



and comfort to promote the causes he has at heart, 
just the same as though he were a poor man and had 
nothing else to give, he gets hold of men's hearts. 
Mr. Vande'rbilt made the young men's railroad work 
his personal care, and when the working men on the 
trains came to know and feel this, they responded 
to it; they felt the difference between the man who 
was a mere signer of checks and a fellow-man with 
a brotherly head and heart. 

Helen Gould has caught the affections of the peo- 
ple in the same way. Helen Gould sending a ship- 
load of provision to feed the sick and wounded sol- 
diers, or sending a car-load of lemons for the hos- 
pitals, or giving a hundred thousand dollars to the' 
Government, might have been a ten-days' admiration ; 
but Helen Gould following these things with her own 
person, nursing the sick, caring for the wounded at 
the loss of her own comfort, showing that she did 
not think of herself "more highly than she ought to 
think," that she did not for a moment consider that 
because she had large wealth she was too great or 
too good to nurse sick soldiers, is what caught the 
heart of America, and made her one of the best 
beloved women in the land to-day, while many other 
people who have given more money than she have 
won only hate in return. 

There is always the peril that we will judge our- 
selves by our best moods, and estimate' our value by 
them, leaving out the off-days and the weak spots 
in our character. Many people judge themselves by 
the apples on the top of the barrel. The tricky 
farmer puts up his barrel of apples with the best 



92 The Motherhood of God 



apples on the top; the windfalls and the rotten and 
worm-eaten ones are hidden out of sight of the pur- 
chaser; but he comes upon them when he eats his 
way into the barrel. We are in danger of judging 
ourselves in the same way. But that is a very un- 
wise method of judgment. It is the weak spot, the 
place of our infirmity, that we need to take wise ac- 
count of, for only in so doing can we be sure the 
strain will not come at that point. 

If the man who is hauling logs knows that there 
is one link in his chain that is not as strong as the 
others, it may be possible for him to so adjust the 
chain that the heavy strain of the' load will never 
come on that link; so you see that the old proverb 
which we' so often use, "A chain is no stronger than 
its weakest link," may not always be true, and, indeed, 
it is never true if the' load is wisely adjusted with 
reference to it. But if a man in a spirit of bravado 
treats the weak link as though it were as strong as 
any of the rest, and puts the strain on it, then the 
strong links are at its mercy. And that is one of the 
perils of egotism. If a man or a woman judges of his 
or her abilities and character humbly and reverently, 
reference will be had to ''the sin which doth so easily 
beset," and the temptation which may prove too 
strong will not be hastily encountered. 

Another peril of egotism arises from the fact that 
we often measure ourselves with reference' to this 
world only. We regard ourselves prosperous be- 
cause we are prosperous animals, and do not take 
into consideration that we are travelers for both 
worlds, and are not strong unless we are strong for 



The Perils of Egotism 



93 



eternity as well as for time. We are not rich unle'ss 
we have wealth that none of the misfortunes of this 
life can bankrupt. How often our measurement of 
health and strength and success and riches has refer- 
ence only to this present life, which is so transitory, 
and has no sober judgment pointing to that endless 
Hfe which we are so rapidly approaching! It is all 
right to lay up something for a rainy day here, but 
have you a letter of credit for the pilgrimage for 
which all this life is only a preparation ? 

A traveler in Oriental lands was greatly impressed 
with the generosity and unselfishness of his drago- 
man. And one day he asked him why he gave' away 
so large a portion of his income to the poor. The 
man was silent for a time, and then told him his story. 

He said he was living in Damascus, and it was the 
last day of the month of Ramadan. It was the time 
of the fast, and it had been a hard fast to kee'p that 
year, and he praised Allah that the thirty days were 
almost past. He came from the great mosque where 
he had been at his devotions. At a street corner 
there sat a beggar, an old man, whom he had seen 
there a thousand times before. The beggar did not 
cry out to him for alms, for he knew that it would 
be useless, because he was so selfish and stingy. But 
the old man looked up at him as he passed, and his 
look was more pitiful and appealing than ever. He 
knew that the beggar was a good Moslem ; that he, 
too, had fasted — and what is a beggar's fast? He 
was weak and lifeless now. 

The' dragoman was thinking of to-morrow. For 
three days he had done little else than enjoy in antici- 
7 



94 



The Motherhood of God 



pation the feast that was to be his on the morrow — 
the pot of boiled goat's flesh, the great loaf of bread, 
the cheese, the fruit ! He was poor, almost a beggar 
himself; but hid away in his girdle was a piece of 
gold, not large indeed — only a five-and-twenty pias- 
ter piece — but it would pay for all these things and 
provide another feast or two. And the old man 
there? Would he break his fast upon the morrow? 
It was doubtful. 

After he had gone on his way a dozen steps or so, 
he stopped and took out his piece of money. In the 
light of the fading day it looked very bright and 
yellow. He fondled it for a moment; he thought 
again of the morrow's feast into which it was to be 
converted. Then the prophet's teaching came to his 
mind: ''Prayer, fasting, alms — prayer will carry you 
half-way to God, fasting will bring you to the door 
of his palace, and alms will gain you admittance." 
He had prayed, he had fasted ; he looked back at the 
old beggar. The beggar was hungry; but so was 
the dragoman — yet he' was young and strong. Alms ? 
Paradise? He went and placed his gold-piece in the 
beggar's hand, and did not wait to hear the blessings 
which the old man besought Allah to send upon him. 

The next day the dragoman we'nt hungry. He 
had no feast and little food of any kind, and a weary 
going to and fro about the city in the hot sun, in a 
fruitless search for friends, after all that month of 
fasting, brought on an illness long and severe. 

He lay, poorly cared for, in the shelter of the 
camel shed. And one night, when he was neither 
asleep nor awake, he was transported thither where 



The Perils of Egotism 



95 



the prophet is; he saw him, and Moses, and all the 
retinue of glorified ones ; but the glory of Allah was 
so great that he saw him not. The splendor of the 
pearls and robes of silk, the charm of the groves and 
fountains, were all indescribable'. But more wonder- 
ful and strange than the other objects which he saw 
there in paradise was a pillar of gold, pure, burnished, 
splendid ; words of the Koran were engraved in ex- 
quisite letters on its seven faces ; it reflected the light 
of Allah's countenance over all that quarter of heaven 
where it stood ; it was a way-mark and shrine for the 
beatified who passed. He judged it to be the heav- 
enly memorial of some good caliph or illustrious 
soldier ; but wheti he made inquiry one of the proph- 
et's celestial messengers whispered into his ear, "No ; 
it is but the tiny gold coin which you gave to the old 
beggar the other evening there in the streets of 
Damascus. Thus great and beautiful do the good 
deeds of the world-life become here in Paradise." 

And that was the explanation of the dragoman's 
generous, brotherly life. He had come back from 
his vision ; recovered from his sickness ; but in all 
the years afterwards he had been trying to raise 
higher and to make more splendid his pillar of gold 
in Paradise. 

Christ has given us a more wonderful vision than 
that in the picture of those who shall be blessed and 
crowned because of their ministry to him, who in an- 
swer to their astonished inquiry shall hear, "Inasmuch 
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done it unto me." 



XI 



The Harness of Life 

" Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that 
putteth it off." — I Kings xx, ii. 

IviF^ in this world can only be carried on success- 
fully at the cost of constant struggle. It is not a 
picnic; it is not a holiday excursion. I do not mean 
to say that picnics and hoHday excursions do not 
have their proper place in the round of every year's 
life. I believe that they do, and that healthy hu- 
man life can not be carried on without them. But, 
speaking of life as a whole', the wise observer must 
regard it as a struggle. There are burdens to be 
carried; there are loads to pull; there are battles to 
fight. 

In such a world and under such conditions har- 
ness becomes a necessity; and the more mettlesome 
and sensitively earnest the quality of the man or 
woman, the more the harness becomes important. 
A pair of oxen need no harness save the wooden 
yoke ; the heavy lethargy characteristic of their tem- 
per does not require anything more complex. But 
no man ever thought of hitching a pair of Ken- 
tucky thoroughbreds from the blue grass pastures 
into an ox-yoke ! The harness for them must com- 

96 



The Harness of Life 



97 



prise the most skillful bit and rein and the most 
carefully adjusted mechanism, so that the high- 
mettled steeds shall have at once a sense of free- 
dom and the perfect consciousness of mastery on 
the part of the driver. The harness must not chafe, 
but it must hold under all circumstances. 

The harness of life, when applied to men and 
women, is well illustrated by that. Human beings, 
with all the possibilities of sensitive human hearts, 
pulsating with hope and fear, capable of faith and 
love, swept by every breath of fancy, yet capable 
of being controlled by discipline and purpose, need 
to look well to the harness if they are to do their 
best work in the world. 

The physical and intellectual conditions under 
which we work every day may be fairly considered 
as a part of the harness of life. Many good people 
fail of doing good work in the world because they 
do not pay sufficient attention to what they con- 
sider the little details of life. In a profound article 
in the London Spectator on the value of John Wes- 
ley's work to England, the writer includes in his 
tribute to Wesley this sentence, "He carried into 
his religion a fine instinct for the 'minor moralities 
of life.' " That means, when you translate it into 
the thought which we are considering, that John 
Wesley was not only a great man, but a practical 
man, who knew that the harness of life, comprising 
many little things, was important in the' great re- 
sults to be attained. 

Many people fail to be forceful characters be- 
cause they do not yield easily to harness. A little 



98 



The Motherhood of God 



child, looking frankly into the face of a stiflF-necked 
man, said, "You walk like' a statue that goes by 
machinery." And there are many people who try 
to do their best work in that wa}^ They wear the 
harness of life under protest. They feel humiliated 
that they should have to pay attention to little 
things. 

But we have no right to feel that way. Joy is 
the proper harness in which a man must do his 
work; and joy comes, not from attention to the 
great things, but to the little things. A recent ^\Titer 
says ^nth graphic force', "We find joy, not when 
we seek it, but when we are read}^ for it." It is a 
condition of inward health, of natural and acquired 
buoyancy of spirit, openness of heart and mind to 
those influences that make for jo}-. It is in experi- 
ence's the most trivial, in ordinan^ occasions that 
are commonplace, that we shall find our highest 
moments of joy. This ought to prove to us that 
joy is not in the world outside of us, but in the 
trusting and confiding spirit with which we yield 
ourselves to the natural harness of life. 

You may easily prove this to be true by noting 
in your own experience that the happiness or mis- 
er}^ which has come to you has usually resulted from 
circumstances that were in themselves of no great 
importance, and that you have never been happy 
or contented a single day save when you were 
willing to find pleasure in little things. 

Some people think it an indication of greatness 
to be indifferent to what they eat or wear, or to 



The Harness of Life 99 



the other incidents of every-day life. Yet these 
things have their place of real importance, and we 
have' all found that the people who enjoy their din- 
ner are usually pleasanter people to get along with 
than the dyspeptic. To think wisely and prudently 
about the physical Hfe, so that the body may be well 
nourished and made comfortable and attractive', is 
to add to the ease with which the harness fits in our 
every-day existence. 

Then there is the social harness. The world has 
for us no greater pleasure than that of the sym- 
pathy of our fellow-beings, and no sweeter joy than 
the privilege of sharing our happiness and our toil 
with them. One never divides a pleasure by shar- 
ing it with his neighbor or friend; he rather multi- 
plies it. The social harness has an immense deal to 
do with our successful work in life. Many a man 
with mediocre ability has performed wonders be- 
cause the harness in home and business and church 
fitted easily and he was able to give his full force 
to bringing about the results upon which his heart 
was set. Many another man of great gifts, capable 
of giving the world supreme help, has had his work 
cripple'd and marred from the chafing of the harness 
on the social side of his life. This fact ought to 
make us careful in our attitude toward our fellow- 
workers. It is easy for us either to exasperate and 
chafe or to inspire and encourage those who toil 
at our side'. We ought not to criticise the good 
men and women who are doing, on the whole, faith- 
ful work for God and humanity, simply because they 

L.ofC. 



lOO 



The Motherhood of God 



do not do their work in our way. Dr. George Horr 
gives utterance to what all of us have experienced 
in the' sense of exasperation that arises when some- 
thing we have executed is criticised and condemned 
for defects of detail, while the general purpose and 
effect of the performance are entirely disregarded. 
What though our brother has failed in some minor 
points, if the great scope of his work is wholesome 
and good? Let us cheer him on to better things 
rather than discourage him by harsh criticism. There 
may be false rhymes in a majestic poem; the great 
orator may mispronounce a word or two ; there may 
be imperfect stones in a noble spire — ^butwhat flagrant 
injustice it would be to judge' a poem or a sermon or a 
temple on the basis of these defects ! I am sure 
that much of the sorrow of home life comes from 
unreasonable criticism that ought never to be ut- 
tered. Sensitive children are often conscious that 
what they do is estimated by trivial and incidental 
defects, and not by the honest and true purpose 
which they have in mind. All this applies with 
special interest to Church work, where the motive 
counts for everything and where confidence and 
generous appreciation are the only harness that will 
enable us to pull our heaviest loads and achieve 
our greatest victories. 

A further thought about working in harness, 
which I think very helpful, is that it suggests a 
steadiness of purpose. It means a life harnessed 
down to patient, honest work, doing duty bravely 
day by day. Dr. Cuyler has recently said — what 



The Harness of Life 



lOI 



I would like to hope and believe is not true, but 
which I fear has much to sustain it — that this is 
not peculiarly an age of heroic Christianity. There 
is more pulp than pluck in the average Christian 
professor when self-denial is required. The men and 
women who not only rejoice in doing their duty 
for Christ, but even rejoice in overcoming uncom- 
fortable obstacles in the doing of it, are quite too 
scarce. The piety that is most needed is a piety that 
will stand a pinch — a piety that would rather eat 
an honest crust than fare sumptuously on fraud; 
a piety that works up-stream against currents; a 
piety that sets its face like a flint in the straight, 
narrow road of righteousness, and pulls steadily in 
duty's harness. 

The Church and the world need men and women 
who are good — good all around, on all sides. As 
another has well put it, what some people need 
is not more religion so much as greater application 
of what they already have, and such a distribution 
of it over the whole character as to give the life 
symmetry and strength. A man is always in a bad 
case when his religion does not seem to fit him. 
When a man's religion fits him like a harness, there 
will be no waste of power. An inventor was recently 
talking about electric conduits. During the con- 
versation he said: "Do you know that great power- 
house of the traction company on the avenue? 
Well, the manager will tell you that forty per cent 
of the electricity generated there is lost because of 
imperfect conduits. Think of that for prodigious 



I02 



The Motherhood of God 



waste! Almost half of the product of that great 
plant counts for nothing!" It is perfectly natural 
for the inventor to grow emphatic over that exces- 
sive waste of energy. But does it not suggest a 
similar waste of greater, more important power in 
the work of the Christian Church? The power of 
God's Spirit often fails of its purpose among men 
because it leaks out by the way when your life 
and mine become worldly and prove imperfect con- 
duits through which heaven seeks to reach our fel- 
low-men. 

We can only get this high sense of duty, in which 
we shall work steadily in the Christian harness, 
through a close' fellowship and communion with 
God. I have just come from the mountains of New 
Hampshire, where for many weeks the old granite 
hills have been almost entirely without rain, and 
some of the brooks are now dried up and barren 
which in previous summers, when I have visited them, 
have bubbled and dashed about the rocks and babbled 
their sweetest music; but up on the mountain the 
wells that were dug deep in the hillside gush forth 
their cool treasures as abundantly as of yore. These 
wells are full of refreshment because they tap the 
great reservoir in the heart of the mountain. They 
do not dry up, because they are in hidden communion 
with the secret treasuries that God has stored up 
against drouth. The secret of a life ever fresh and 
abundant, standing faithful in the midst of discour- 
agement, abounding in enthusiasm and courage when 
others are yielding to disappointment and defeat, 



The Harness of Life 103 

is the secret of hidden communion with God, the 
drawing on the reserve in the secret places of the 
Most High. 

But let us never forget that duty's harness must 
be adorned with love to give it the highest useful- 
ness and achievement. ''When you bait your hook 
with your heart," says John Burroughs, ''the fish 
always bite." When we' do duty, not grimly, not 
in the spirit of a stoic, but in the gentle, loving spirit 
of Jesus Christ, we get a hold on men's hearts, and 
are able to help them; and that is a lesson, not for 
the' pulpit only, but also for the pew. 

A young preacher went straight from college to 
a rough town on the frontier, and for seven years 
worked there to win the town to Christ. He gave 
himself in unselfish love to win rough men to the 
beauty and nobility of the Savior. He was not a 
great preacher, judged by the world's standard of 
oratory; but he baited his hook with his heart, and 
under his ministry wicked men and women were 
transformed into saints. 

After seven years of work his health failed, and 
he underwent a critical operation, which left him 
in the borderland for a week. With his wife and 
two Httle ones watching the fight for life, this hero 
of faith was determined to do his part to live if 
it were God's will, and the whole town listened 
for hourly tidings. 

Then the physician said, "He' is gone." But he 
came back, and when he could speak, he said, "Well, 
doctor, I guess it is not so very far to the kingdom 
now, is it?'* 



I04 The Motherhood of God 

He asked for his family, to say the last words. 
As the news spread that he was saying farewell to 
his friends, business men and others — many not 
Christians, some not even church-goers — came, beg- 
ging to see him. As fast as the physician would 
let them into the room they stood by his bed and 
wept while he gave each one a grasp of the hand 
and a kind word to fit his spiritual need, 

A Jew, an old merchant, with whom he had 
talked many a time on reHgion, came and said: "I 
love that man. Can I bid him good-bye?" 

The dying pastor grasped his hand warmly. 
"Well, Brother Katsky, my sojourn here is about 
ended. It has not been so long as your people 
were on the way to the promised land, but I shall 
soon see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and the 
great good men of the earth, and in the midst of 
them all, and the theme of all their songs, I shall 
see Jesus Christ, the Crucified One." 

So this man — Empson Cory — who had given 
himself in abandon to love's easy harness in work 
for Jesus Christ, put of? the harness at last with 
great joy and blessing. 

We are living now in the day of struggle. God 
gives us times of rejoicing by the way, but the great 
time of rejoicing will come when we put off the har- 
ness of earth, because the battles have been fought 
and the victories have been won. 

As I came down through New Hampshire the 
other day, I saw at some of the towns a unique 
sight. The governor had issued a proclamation set- 



The Harness of Life 



ting apart what he called "Old Home Week," dur- 
ing which those who had gone forth from the State 
into different parts of the w^orld to fulfill their life's 
career should be specially invited to come back and 
meet in joyous reunion in the old home. And so 
at some of the railroad stations there were bands 
of music, with flying flags and crowds in hoHday 
dress, and smiHng, joyous, though often tearful 
faces, to me'et the throngs returning by train for the 
happy festal occasion. In the train with me were 
two men who were brothers, who had gone forth 
in their boyhood from an old New Hampshire home, 
determined to do and dare their best for an honor- 
able place in the world's life. They had both been 
successful: one of them was an associate judge on 
the supreme bench of his State, and the other was 
chief-justice of another State. And these gray-haired 
brothers, full of honors, talked to me with shining 
eyes of the joy of "Old Home Week." I could not 
but be' glad for them and appreciate what such an 
occasion must mean to them to thus come back, 
with their noble honors like wreaths upon their 
brow, to the old fireside, where love and kindne'ss 
nourished the ambitions of their boyhood. 

But that is only a faint and imperfect illustra- 
tion of what is coming after awhile, when all the 
struggles of life are over and the' choruses of angels 
shall lead the music as the veteran soldiers of earth 
shall put off their harness amid the blazing light of 
the great white throne. Let us "thank God and take 
courage." We shall often have to walk by faith, 



io6 



The Motherhood of God 



and not by sight ; but let us trust God and wear with 
patience the loving harness which Christ himself 
has worn before uSc Let us join with the' poet in 
singing: 

' ' I can not see, with my small human sight, 
"Why God should lead this way or that for me ; 
I only know he saith, * Child, follow me ;' 
But I can trust. 

I know not why my path should be at times 
So straitly hedged, so strongly barred before ; 
I only know God could keep wide the door ; 
But I can trust. 

I find no answer, often, when beset 
With questions fierce and subtle on my way, 
And often have but strength to faintly pray ; 
But I can trust. 

I often wonder, as with trembling hand 
I cast the seed along the furrowed ground, 
If ripened fruit will in my Hfe be found ; 
But I can trust. 

I can not know why suddenly the stomi 
Should rage so fiercely round me in its wrath ; 
But this I know — God watches all my path. 
And I can trust. 

I may not draw aside the mystic veil 
That hides the unknown futme from my sight ; 
Nor know if for me waits the dark or light ; 
But I can trust. 

1 have no power to look across the tide, 
To see, while here, the land beyond the river ; 
But this I know, I shall be God's forever; 
So I can trust." 



XII 



The Strands of Heaven's Cable 

** Seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto 
you." — Matthew vii, 7. 

**Give, and it shall be given unto you." — Luke vi, 38. 

Hdr^ are three strands, given us by Jesus Christ 
himself, out of which any true heart may twist a 
cable that will hold amid every storm that sweeps 
over the sea of life'. By this cable it is possible for 
us to pull ourselves into the heavenly harbor at 
last. 

The first strand is. Seek. Seeking for anything 
suggests a definite purpose to find it. It means 
more than looking. People often look for things 
when they have not the patience or the grit to 
really seek after them. Seeking indicates more de- 
termination than looking. A man looks for a treas- 
ure lost, and if he does not see it soon he gives up 
and goes on. But when a man sets out to seek, 
he is like the shepherd who left the' ninety and nine 
in the fold and went out in the darkness of the night, 
seeking after the one lost sheep until he found it. 
He is like the woman who had ten pieces of silver, 
and when she lost one did not look for it a moment 
and give up, but lighted a candle and continued to 
seek diligently till she found it. Seeking means dili- 

107 



io8 The Motherhood of God 

gence and patience and taking time enough to find 
what you want. 

A student asked the president of his college if 
he could not take a shorter course' than that pre- 
scribed by the institution. "O yes," was the reply; 
"but that depe'nds on what you want to make of your- 
self. When God wants to make an oak he takes a 
hundred years, but when he wants to make a squash 
he takes six months."' Seeking means that yow are 
going to take time to get the very best things. 

Earnest seeking implies hope and faith. People 
seek earnestly because they expect to find. They 
are given nerve and courage and are buoyed up in 
their efforts by the prospect of the happiness that 
will be theirs when they find. We ought always 
to give ourselves the full benefit of hope in our 
seeking. 

An old farmer complained that, although he had 
several barrels of good apples in his cellar at the 
beginning of winter, he saw on his table from fall 
to spring nothing but spotted and partially decayed 
fruit. His wife went on the principle that the worst 
fruit ought to be used first, and so day after day 
the most decayed apples were picked out to be 
eaten, and the best kept until the last. And so she 
just about kept pace with the rot in the apples. The 
best kept that way got to be as poor as the worst 
had been by the time she got to them. 

A good many people' act the same way in regard 
to hopefulness about the successes and joys of life 
which are to come. There are people who say, "Do 
not dwell on the joys of to-morrow until they come." 



The Strands of Heaven^ s Cable 109 



But that is not good wisdom. It is bette'r to give 
yourself all the joy you can out of the prospect of 
the morrow. It will make to-day easier, and if the 
morrow should bring disappointment it can not rob 
you of the joy you have had from anticipation. To 
be always repressing yourself and not allowing your- 
self to hope is to doom yourself to a low ideal and 
make it pretty sure that you will not rise above it. 
Better have the dreams of Joseph with the nodding 
sheaves and bowing stars of exaggerated prophecy 
than to be always eating the rotten apples of pessi- 
mism. We should seek the best things, and believe 
they are for us. Jesus says, "Seek ye first the 
kingdom of God, and his righteousness ; and all these 
things shall be added unto you." As the greater 
includes the less, so when we seek our right relation 
to God we include in our finding a harmonious rela- 
tion to all other things. 

The second strand is, Knock. Knocking shows a 
purpose to get in. It means persistence. It is a 
certain indication of faith that there is somebody 
inside who can let us in. 

A busy man sat in his private office. In a room 
adjoining, a group of his assistants we're busily em- 
ployed. Between was a door which no one but 
the great man ever used. If an employee wished 
to address him, there was the hall-way outside and 
another door guarded by an office-boy. One day 
a little fellow of six years rambled into the assist- 
ants' room, asked a question or two, and then 
walked deliberately up to the private' door and 
pounded on it with a good, round, authoritative 
8 



no 



The Motherhood of God 



knock. The great man's chief assistant looked up 
with an astounded expression as the unusual sound 
fell upon his ear. Other employees regarded the 
child with startled curiosity. Rap ! Rap ! went the 
little fellow. "Go around by the hall," some one 
suggested. "I '11 not," said the child. "My papa '11 
open this door for me." Sure enough, the' door 
soon opened, a smiling face looked forth, and a 
tender voice said, "Welcome, my dear!" and drew 
the child within. "Ah!" thought the chief assistant, 
remembering the text, "Knock, and it shall be opened 
unto you." 

The text suggests the tender relations between 
the human heart and God. We are not treated like 
servants or strangers, but as a child. He knows 
our knock, and we are assured that there is a wel- 
come in his heart and love in his countenance when 
he hears the humblest of his children knocking for 
admittance. With infinite tenderness, Christ urges 
the same illustration when he tells of his own seek- 
ing after our souls. He says, "Behold, I stand at 
the door and knock : if any man hear my voice, 
and open the door, I will come in to him, and will 
sup with him, and he with me." Then there is a 
finding and a rejoicing. 

When a man finds what he has been seeking after, 
he knows it by experience ; and so there is a joyous 
experience when a seeking Christ who is knocking at 
the door of the heart finds a repenting sinner who is 
knocking at the door of mercy. The glory of Chris- 
tianity, its supreme joy, is the rapture of the opened 
door and the feast of soul inside, which every Chris- 



The Strands of Hea'oen's Cable iii 



tian knows for himself. It was that that gave such 
marvelous momentum to the great revival under the 
Wesleys and Whitefield. When John Wesley had 
knocked until the door was opened unto him in joy- 
ous conversion, he went down to Cornwall, a region 
of smugglers, where smuggled brandy encouraged 
the universal drunkenness. He brought to those 
miners and smugglers a rapturous, singing religion 
that shouted with gladness: 

"My God, I am thine ; 
What a comfort divine ; 
What a blessing to know 
That my Jesus is mine !" 

This gospel of personal experience created such 
consternation that men were arrested and brought 
before the court for claiming to be converted. Wes- 
ley asked one' aristocratic gentleman what was the 
charge against one of these new converts who had 
been thrown into jail. The answer was: "Why, the 
man is well enough in other things, but his impu- 
dence the gentlemen can not abide. Why, sir, he 
says he knows that his sins are forgiven." And for 
that they sent him to prison. 

But sometimes they found a judge with sense. 
On one occasion a cart-load of these singing Chris- 
tians were brought before the magistrate in the 
town of Epworth. ''What have they done?" asked 
the magistrate. That was a point that had not been 
considered; but at last one ventured to say, "Why, 
they pretend to be better than other people." "Well, 
they had not far to go to be that. Is there nothing 



112 The Motherhood of God 



else?" asked the magistrate. "Yes/' says another; 
"they pray from morning till night." "But what 
else have they done?" urged the magistrate. After 
awhile there came a voice from the back of the court- 
room: "They have converted my wife. Before she 
went among them she had such a tongue, and now, 
Your Honor, she 's like a lamb !" "Carry them back, 
carry them back," said the magistrate, "and let them 
convert all the wives in the parish." 

Knock until the door of mercy opens, and you 
will find a feast of fellowship with Christ that will 
be swe'eter than any fellowship of earth. 

"Give, and it shall be given unto you," is our 
third strand in the cable b}^ which we are to be drawn 
to heaven. The whole world is built on that law. 
By giving of what we have we come into the line of 
still greater bestowal of God's gifts. The grateful 
heart that gives thanks receives still greater cause 
for thankfulness. 

A Scotch writer gave to Hamilton W. Mabie this 
illustration of the source of a Scotchman's inspira- 
tion : One day in the early spring he was walking 
along the' side of a mountain in the highlands when 
he came to a hut where lived an old man whom he 
had known for many years. The author saw the old 
man with his head bowed and his bonnet in his hand. 

He waited a little on coming up, and said to 
him after a bit, "I did not speak to you, Sandy, be- 
cause I thought you might be at your prayers." 

"Well, not exactly that," said the old man; "but 
I will tell you what I was doing. Every morning 
for forty years I have taken ofif my bonnet here to 
the beauty of the world.'* 



The Strands of Hea'uen's Cable 



"3 



How impossible it would be for a man to give 
forth such gratitude without receiving from God 
large powers of appreciation. 

If we give God our loving service unstintedly, 
he will give back to us good measure, running over, 
more than we can conceive. Rev. Charles Garrett, 
the great Liverpool city missionary, speaking about 
the true glory of Christ's Gospel, says that he knows 
a lot of good people who want to be Jews again. 
They want to make the details so sharp that one 
may know exactly. ''Show me where God says it." 
"If I ask a man to be a teetotaler, he says, 'Show 
me where God commands it.' " But love does not 
want commands ; it only wants opportunities. 

The Pharisees knew the law. They knew exactly 
— to quote what one of the quack advertisements 
says — what to eat, drink, and avoid. They knew 
just how far they might go on a Sunday and where 
they must stop; and when they had broken the law 
they knew just the value' of the sacrifice they had 
to offer. It was like a kind of time-table. They 
knew exactly where they were. But we are under 
love — glorious. Godlike love. Love has a wider 
sweep than law. Love gives unmeasured. There 
is no overtime with love. 

There is nothing too little' for love to notice. 
The mother sees the little tiny scratch on the child's 
hand that most people would overlook ; but she sees 
it and kisses the place to make it we'll. A little 
thing? It is not little to her. It affects her child. 

And, on the other hand, there is nothing too 
great for love to undertake. Love knows no such 
thing as impossibility. In the coal-mines in Lanca- 



114 



7%e Motherhood of God 



shire' a coal-pit shelved in. The crowds gathered 
around, clearing away the mass of earth to get at 
the men at work beneath. In the midst of all their 
toil a stalwart, gray-bearded old man strode up to 
them and said, "Get out of the road," and seizing 
a pick, commenced working with the strength of 
ten men. The sweat was soon streaming down his 
brawny face, and somebody said, 'Xet me have the 
pick." "Get out of the way," he cried, "I have two 
boys down there." 

That is what love does. A man working for 
w^ages is a very different being from the man who 
is working for love. And you show me a Christian 
man that is working for love without stint, giving 
of time and money and service to help forward 
Christ's kingdom and bless his fellow-men, and I 
will show you one to whom God is giving over- 
flowing blessing in return. 

This is the true secret of joy in human li\dng. 
Give comfort and joy, and it will be given back to 
you in larger measure. Service, not self-indulgence, 
is the key into God's great storehouse. Josephine 
Troup sings for us an old Eastern legend that em- 
phasizes this truth: 

*'A certain wise man, deeply versed 
In all the learning of the East, 
Grew tired in spirit, and athirst 
From life to be released. 

So to Eliab, holy man 

Of God, he came : 'Ah, give me, friend, 
The herb of death, that now the span 

Of my vain life may end.' 



The Strands of Hea'ven^s Cable 



Eliab gently answered : ' Ere 
Thy soul may free itself indeed, 

This herb of healing thou must bear 
To seven men in need. 

'When thou hast lightened each man's | 
And brought him hope and joy again, 

Return ; nor shalt thou seek relief 
At Allah's hands in vain.' 

The wise man sighed, but humbly said : 
*As Allah willeth, so is best.' 

And with the healing herb he sped 
Away upon his quest. 

And, as he journeyed on, intent 
To serve the sorrowing in the land, 

On deeds of love and mercy bent, 
The herb bloomed in his hand ; 

And through his pulses shot a fire 
Of strength and hope and happiness ; 

His heart leaped with a glad desire 
To live and serve and bless. 

Lord of all earthly woe and weal. 
Be this, life' s flower, forever mine ! 

To love, to comfort, and to heal — 
Therein is life divine !" 



XIII 



The Face of Jesus Christ 

*'The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ." — 2 Corinthians iv, 6. 

ThK traveler in foreign countries, especially in 
the old historic countries of Europe, finds great 
interest in the portrait galleries, not only in the mu- 
seums of art and history, but in the more private 
galleries in great castles, where, on canvas, often 
old and faded, is preserved the ancestral line' of some 
great and historic house. 

The Bible may well be compared to a portrait 
gallery. We have preserved in its books sketches 
which give a very vivid idea of the vital and earnest 
leaders of our race. How splendid are the pictures 
that look down upon us from the' walls as we wander 
through these great rooms of the Bible ! There is 
Adam in his loneliness ; Eve in her dialogue with 
the devil; Cain flying from his slain brother; Abra- 
ham welcoming the angels at his tent-door; Daniel 
in the den of lions ; his fellow-exiles in the fiery fur- 
nace ; Joseph coming down from the throne to greet 
his brethren ; Moses, the rugged lawgiver ; David 
with his harp, at once the king, the poet, and the 
musician. And so, on and on, we might wander 

ii6 



The Face of Jesus Christ 



117 



without limit. In the Vatican at Rome, the largest 
of all earth's art-galleries, there are eleven thousand 
rooms, and one may wander for days with walls of 
speaking pictures and statuary on either side. But 
the Bible is a greater portrait gallery than that, and 
all its portraits lose their splendor in the greater 
glory of the face of Jesus Christ. 

The thought which I wish to emphasize is that 
we are all being judged — indeed, we are' judging our- 
selves — by what we see in the face of Christ. People 
do not always see the same things in the face of 
Jesus. When Christ hung upon the cross, one of 
the thieves who was crucified with him saw in his 
face only the' misery and pain of a man dying like 
himself, for his sins. He saw nothing to convince 
him that Christ was not a humbug and a fraud, and 
died mocking him and railing at him. The other 
thief, who was dying the same cruel death, saw in 
the face of Jesus Christ the beauty and majesty of 
a Divine Savior, and was so impressed with what he 
saw that he prayed for mercy, and his sins were 
forgiven. 

During his earthly life a great many people saw 
tenderness in the face' of Jesus Christ. If you fol- 
low along in his footsteps, I think you will be greatly 
impressed with the number of people who found 
tenderness and compassion in his face. One of them 
was a poor woman who had been sick for a dozen 
years and had hunted up all the expert physicians 
until she had spent all her living trying to get cured ; 
but she was no better, and had given up all hope 
of being better until she heard the wonderful rumors 



ii8 



The Motherhood of God 



about the cures Christ had performed. Then, one 
day, when he passed through her town, though he 
was on the way to see the daughter of the richest 
man in the place, and a great crowd was about him, 
this poor woman rushed from her home and fol- 
lowed after him through the streets. She no doubt 
felt that this was her only chance, so she elbowed 
her way through the crowd behind him until she 
got near enough to pluck the hem of his gar- 
ment in her fingers, and she was healed. 

Christ might have gone on, satisfied with hav- 
ing healed her. Some people would say, Surely 
that was enough to do for the poor thing. But that 
never was Christ's way. He not only went about 
doing good, but he did his good deeds in a beautiful, 
lovely way. And so he turned about and held a 
conversation with the woman right there in the 
crowd, and gave her a new self-respect and courage 
and happiness by permitting her to look into his 
tender, loving face. 

I would to God that every one of us seeking 
to follow Christ could look into his face until we get 
that tenderness reflected perfectly in our own. 
Tenderness is by no means appreciated as it ought 
to be. As Dr. Meyer justly says, far too many people 
think that tenderness implies softness or weakness. 
But that is a great mistake. Only very strong na- 
tures can be really tender. Some years ago I saw 
one of those great steam-hammers that weigh ever 
so many tons made to crack a filbert without hurt- 
ing the kernel. So the glorious strength of Jesus 
Christ permeating our human nature will give us 



The Face of Jesus Christ 



119 



strength to repress the irritable and aggravating 
word, to refrain from the hasty and impulsive act, 
and to stay in our rush long enough to do kind 
things in a kind and gentle manner. How many 
a well-meant deed is spoiled by the roughness and 
heartlessness of its doing! The apple of gold is 
set in a picture of dirty wood. It is like reading 
Milton or Dante in a ragged, soiled binding. But 
as only a rich man can afford to have splendid frames 
for all his pictures, so only a rich and glorious soul 
can give the best things in the best style. The glory 
of it is that the best things and the best style in the? 
higher and spiritual realm are within the reach of 
every one of us. How foolish we are when we do 
not frame a kind act or a generous deed in the rich 
beauty of tenderness ! 

Zacchseus saw hope in the face of Jesus. Zac- 
chseus was a very unpopular man, and deserved to 
be'; for he had been dishonest and mean in his deal- 
ings. But no man is all bad; and there was a great 
vein of gold in Zacchseus that made his mean wrong- 
doing seem loathsome to him, and he longed to 
be a better man than he was. Yet so long had 
people treated him as though he were a scoundrel 
that he had almost lost hope of being anything bet- 
ter until he looked in the face of Jesus Christ. One 
day he heard that Jesus was coming to town, and, 
being a little man, he pocketed his pride and climbed 
up on to the first limb of a tree, in order to make 
sure of catching sight of his face. When Jesus came 
along, he looked up and caught sight of the anxious 
gaze of Zacchseus. The Master stopped and looked 



I20 



The Motherhood of God 



at him. No one had ever looked at Zacchaeus Hke 
that before. In the Savior's face was something 
which stirred his hope. Something in that look not 
only made Zacchaeus beUeve that goodness was worth 
what it costs, but made him dare to believe that 
goodness was possible to him. And when Jesus, 
giving him that hopeful look, told him to come down 
and lead the way home, for he should be his guest, 
Zacchaeus slid out of that tree the happiest and most 
hopeful man in town. As he went home, conversing 
with Jesus and looking into his face, his hope grew 
on him until by the time he got to the house he 
had made up his mind what he would do, and the 
first minute he was alone with the Lord he cried out, 
"The half of my goods I give to the poor; and if 
I have taken anything from any man by false accu- 
sation, I restore him fourfold." 

The world needs to see the hope in the face of 
Jesus Christ. We Christians ought to carry the 
hopefulness of Jesus to those who have been made 
to despair by sin. John B. Gough was staggering 
on his w^ay to a drunkard's grave when a man who 
had gotten into his heart the goodness and gentle- 
ness of Jesus touched him on the shoulder one day, 
and when Gough turned rudely around he looked 
into a face so tender and heard words and saw a 
countenance so full of hope that he began right there 
to conquer his awful appetite and climb back to- 
wards sobriety and honor. 

The late' Dr. Charles A. Berry used to tell how 
he was converted to preaching more fully the hope 



The Face of Jesus Christ 



121 



there is for a poor sinner in the Divine atonement 
made by Jesus Christ. One evening as he was writ- 
ing a sermon for the next Sunday, a young woman 
was ushered into his presence, who sobbed out a 
request that he would go and "get her mother in." 
''Get her in, sir! Get her in!" The girl seemed 
to think that her mother, who was dying, could be 
got into heaven by the preacher. He went to the 
house. It was a place kept for immoral purposes, 
where many a poor girl had walked the burning path 
of shame and ruin. The woman was in great hor- 
ror as the sins of her wicked life crowded upon her 
conscience. How could she escape? Dr. Berry felt 
himself quite at a loss what to do or say. His the- 
ories utterly failed him. To set before her the beau- 
tiful example of the holy Jesus, and to urge' her to 
imitate him, was useless ; for she was dying, with 
a vast load of guilt upon her conscience, with noth- 
ing to relieve her fears of *'the wrath to come." To 
exhort her to amend her ways and cast of¥ her sins 
by righteousness was equally unavailing; for she 
had but a few hours before she would have to take 
her stand before the Judge. In this emergency he' 
felt that there was nothing that could save her but 
faith in the all-atoning blood of Jesus. And so he 
fell back on that great promise which Christ himself 
used in talking to Nicodemus, "For God so loved 
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life." The dying woman grasped 
the fact of God's love in giving his Son, and that 



122 



The Motherhood of God 



the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. 
She was able to see the hope in the face of Jesus. 
Her terror ceased and gave place to peace. 

Peter saw grieved rebuke in the face of Jesus. 
The night when he denied his Lord, Christ looked 
on Peter, and there was in his face such a mingUng 
of tenderness and grief that Peter's heart was broken, 
and he went out into the darkness to pour out his 
soul in bitter tears of repentance. Happy it was for 
Petel- that he thus purged his soul of his sin; for 
the next time he saw Christ there was forgiveness 
and love and sweet satisfaction in his face. We 
ought to be careful to keep clear in our heart's vision 
the face of Jesus as our loving Lord. 

When the order to clear for action was given in 
Dewey's fleet on that memorable May morning in 
Manila Bay, one of the powder-boys hastily took 
of¥ his coat, which slipped from his hand into the 
water. In the inside pocket was a photograph of 
his mother. The boy had just been looking at it, 
and had kissed it and restored it to what seemed to 
be a safe place. He asked permission to jump over- 
board and recover the coat, and when he was for- 
bidden to do this, he went to the other side of the 
ship, leaped into the water, swam to the coat, and 
saved it. For disobedience he was put in irons and 
held for punishment. Commodore Dewey won- 
dered why he had risked his life and disobeyed orders 
for the sake of a coat ; for the boy had said noth- 
ing about the photograph. In answer to the Commo- 
dore's kind questions he disclosed his motive. The 
Commodore's eyes filled with tears, and he clasped 



The Face of Jesus Christ 



123 



the boy in his arms. Orders were given that the 
Httle fellow should be released. "A boy who loves 
his mother enough to risk his life for her picture," 
said Dewey, "can not be kept in irons on this fleet." 

That is the kind of feehng we' ought to have 
about keeping clear in our mental vision the beauti- 
ful face of our Divine Savior. 

We shall all look on the face of Jesus Christ 
again. We are assured that every eye shall see 
him ; that even those who pierced him shall look 
upon him. What do you see in Christ's face now? 
What do you hope to see after awhile? God help 
us to so find tenderness and forgiveness and love 
in his face that, as the changing years go on, our 
faces shall become like his ! If we are thus stead- 
fastly pressing onward in his footsteps, we may 
sing with the psalmist, "As for me, I will behold 
thy face' in righteousness : I shall be satisfied, when 
I awake, with thy Hkeness." 



XIV 



The Mirage of To-Morrow 

** To-morrow shall be ... a day great beyond measure." — 
Isaiah lvi, 12 (Rev. Ver.) 

Wi: have all read about and marveled at, if we 
have not observed, that strange' phenomenon of na- 
ture known as the mirage. Many a traveler in the 
desert, surrounded only by barren sands upon which 
the sun beats down with blinding ferocity, has seen 
before his bewildered eyes, rising in the distance, a 
lake or a river or a spring with green grass about 
it and great, generous palms, with wide-reaching, 
cooling shade. And sometimes whole caravans have 
been led astray until too late for rescue by this illusive 
mirage of the desert. 

To-morrow is to many the ever-recurring mirage 
of life. Many are like those who are described as 
giving utterance to the' text — greedy and sensual 
drunkards and gluttons to-day, but to-morrow prom- 
ising to their deluded minds something great and 
splendid. George H. Hubbard says that to-morrow 
is the day on which idle men labor and fools reform. 
It is the day when every man does his duty. It is the 
harvest-time of good intentions. The worst sinner 

124 



The Mirage of To-Morrom) 125 

expects to be a saint to-morrow. To-morrow the 
frivolous pleasure-seeker, living to-day a flabby and 
useless life, will be transformed into a serious-minded, 
whole-souled worker for the good of humanity. To- 
morrow the dishonest man will be honest, the im- 
moral man will be pure, the selfish man will be benev- 
olent. To-morrow bad habits will be overcome', evil 
tempers will be conquered, wrong desires will be 
banished. To-morrow myriads of men and women 
Vv^ill heed the call of Christ. To-morrow they will 
follow him, they will give themselves wholly to his 
service, they will put forth unsparing effort, they will 
make willing sacrifices, they will stand boldly for the 
right though the heavens fall, they will ally themselves 
with the Christian Church, and become' noble work- 
ers for God and man. Cowards will be brave, time- 
serving politicians ripen into statesmen, triflers be- 
come mianly, to-morrow. All these great things are 
to be done to-morrow. What a wonderful land To- 
morrow is ! 

Multitudes of people are led on with dreams of 
that sort through long lives. Their to-day is always 
mean and selfish and useless ; to-morrow they expect 
to turn over a new leaf and be different. But their 
to-morrow never comes, or when it does come it is 
to-day; and to-day they put off doing duty, shirk 
their responsibilities, indulge their selfishness, excuse 
their indifference to the demands of God, and tolerate 
and coddle their sins. 

All this is illustrated in the way we look at the 
future from the different seasons of life. Childhood 
9 



126 



The Motherhood of God 



is always looking on to youth ; it does not expect to 
accomplish much in boyhood or girlhood, but young 
manhood or young womanhood is to blossom into 
beauty and heroism. When youth comes and is in 
its full glow the mirage shifts onward, and then a 
man comforts himself by feeling that not much can 
be done while one is so young, but mature manhood 
shall have broad shoulders and strong courage and 
nobility of life. When that day arrives the shifting 
panorama looks onward to ripe old age, mellow with 
the autumn, gentle and sympathetic and holy when 
there is not much else left to do. Old age casts a 
glance across the river to eternity, and hopes for a 
heaven that may give the withered and dying plant 
another chance to grow and blossom. 

Now the thought I wish to give emphasis to is 
this : The golden age of life is not in to-morrow, but 
in to-day. To-day and not to-morrow is the miracle- 
working time. Great transformations of character 
and spirit and conduct are possible to-day. Anything 
that is good to-morrow must grow out of the soil 
of to-day. Great opportunities and privileges com- 
ing to-morrow are of no value unless the soul has 
been to-day getting training and discipline that fits 
it for the doing of noble deeds. Many people make 
the great blunder of delaying their training for great 
deeds, while still cherishing the ambition that they 
will some time fill a larger sphere. They think that 
when the time comes they will rise to the emergency. 
But when their opportunity does come they find that 
their idle and useless life in humbler days has unfitted 
them to do the work of the larger place. James Rus- 



The Mirage of To-Morroiv 



127 



sell Lowell sings this truth with a vigor which ought 
to inspire our hearts to self-discipline. He says : 

"In life's small things be resolute and great 
To keep thy muscle trained ; knowest thou when fate 
Thy measure takes, or when she ' 11 say to thee 
* I find thee worthy ; do this deed for me ?' " 

There could be no greater folly than for men and 
women to permit themselves to go tramping across 
the desert sands of wasted to-days, deceived by the 
illusion of to-morrow's mirage. Why promise your- 
self you will be a better man to-morrow than you are 
to-day ? Unless to-day is being lived faithfully, there 
is no hope of your delivering the goods of an honest 
life to-morrow. Solid character to-day is the only 
material that you can be sure will not fail you to- 
morrow. 

A band of Apache Indians in the Rocky Moun- 
tains captured an army paymaster's safe'. It con- 
tained about seven thousand dollars in greenbacks. 
It weighed four hundred pounds, and locked with a 
combination. None of the Indians had ever examined 
a safe at close quarters before, but they all knew 
why it was hauled about from post to post, and were 
very anxious to get hold of the money. They first 
pounded off the knob with stones, thinking the door 
could then be pried open. It was a failure, of course', 
and then they tried their tomahawks on the chilled 
steel, hoping to cut a hole in it. They had seen iron 
softened by fire', and the third move was to give the 
safe a three-hours' roasting ; but it proved to be fire- 
proof. They threw big rocks upon it while it was 
still hot, and it was dented here and there, but they 



T28 



The Motherhood of God 



were' as far from the money as ever. Then they 
dragged it up the side of a mountain, and dropped 
it over a precipice two hundred feet high. They ex- 
pected to see it burst open, but the only harm don^ 
was to break ofif one of the wheels. They left it lying 
where it fell for awhile, and then carried it to the' river 
and let it soak for a whole week. It was thought that 
this would soften it, and great was their chagrin to 
find it as hard as ever. Then they tried gunpowder, 
but, knowing nothing of blasting, they brought about 
an explosion which badly burned half a dozen In- 
dians, but did no damage to the safe. For a month 
the Indians worked at that safe, harder than they had 
ever worked at anything else in all their lives ; but 
they failed to get inside of it, and finally tumbled it 
into a deep ravine and left it. Fourteen months later, 
after peace was made, the Government got on the 
track of the safe, and an ambulance and a guard were 
sent for it. It was found lying in the bed of a creek 
with a pile of driftwood around it. It was a rusty, 
dented, lonesome-looking old safe ; but when it was 
brought into the fort and the door opened, it yielded 
up its contents without the loss of a dollar. 

True character is like that: you may hurl it into 
any turbulent to-morrow, and know that it will hold 
the gold of to-day safe and sound as capital for the 
future. You may put character through the fires of 
temptation, you may stone it as the'y did Stephen, 
thrust it into the den of lions as they did Daniel, put 
it into the stocks as they did Paul, but it will keep its 
treasure secure, and bring it forth to-morrow, and 
the day after, to be honored of God and man. 



The Mirage of To-Morr<yw 



129 



Many men are' literally living the folly spoken of 
in this text. They are wasting their strength, phys- 
ical, mental, and moral, by the prodigality of to-day, 
and yet they are looking into the devil's mirage of 
to-morrow, expecting that when it comes they will be 
sober and self-masterful men. 

A New Orleans business man, who had flattered 
himself that he was only a moderate drinker and 
could never be harmed by strong drink unless he 
became a drunkard, from which fate he felt safe, said 
to a friend recently that he had witnessed a little 
episode that morning that had haunted him ever since, 
and had forced him to do a good deal of thinking. 

He had stepped into a bar very early to get a 
glass, and while it was being compounded, a middle- 
aged gentleman came in and asked one of the attend- 
ants to pour him out a little plain whisky. The man 
was carefully dressed, and had all the marks of re- 
finement and good breeding. The bartender placed 
a small glass half-full of whisky at his elbow ; but the 
instant he stretched out his hand it was evident that 
the man was on the verge of nervous collapse. He 
shook like an aspen, and when he finally managed to 
seize the' tumbler its contents flew in every direction. 
"Let me assist you. Colonel," said the bartender, 
quietly, and, pouring out another drink, he leaned 
over and held it to his lips. The man said nothing, 
but gave him a haggard look that went to our busi- 
ness man's heart like a knife. What a look ! Shame, 
humiliation, and abject animal terror. It started the 
sweat on the observer. 

Well, the broken man drank his whisky, stood 



130 The Motherhood of God 



still for a minute as if gathering himself together, 
and then walked out. Our friend asked the bartender 
if he had many such customers, and he laughed. 
'Xots of them," he said. ''There is not a first-class 
bar in town," he went on, "that does n't patch up a 
few old boys Hke that every morning. They are not 
drunkards, but they have' been at it so many years 
that their nerves are gone, and, although they do n't 
know it, they are working on absolutely nothing but 
whisky. As soon as they get a little fresh fuel in the 
morning they are all right, but they come in scared 
and out of their wits and thinking they are going to 
drop dead every minute." 

The business man walked out with some' new 
ideas. 

Ah! if young men would only reflect! Think of 
coming to an old age like that ! Think of a man de- 
liberately wasting his nerves by strong drink and dis- 
sipation of other sorts, and then deluding himself 
with the devil's mirage of a mature life and an old 
age that shall be strong and pure and honorable ! 
Was there ever any deception more cruel than that? 
And yet I meet young men every day, and there are 
men who hear me preach every Sunday, who are 
walking that very path. And they will not believe 
me when T say to them that the occasional drinker of 
to-day is the tippler of to-morrow, and the moderate 
drinker of to-day is the drunkard of to-morrow. 
They will not believe even the words of the wise man 
of history, though they are borne' out by every day's 
observation on every street of the city, when he warns 
with solemn utterance : "Be not among wine-bibbers ; 



The Mirage of To-Morromf 



, . . for the drunkard and the glutton shall come 
to poverty. . . . Who hath woe? who hath 
sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath bab- 
bling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath 
redness of eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine ; 
they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou 
upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color 
in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last 
it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." 

It is the current of Hfe which we must take into 
consideration. Show me a river at any given point, 
and I can reasonably predict what it will be a few 
miles down the stream. Show me your to-day, and 
I can judge of your to-morrow. If to-morrow is to 
be sweet and strong and beautiful, then to-day must 
be devoted to the development of the graces desired. 

John Ruskin says : "The path of a good woman is 
indeed strewn with flowers ; but they rise behind her 
steps, not before them." And that is as true of a man 
as of a woman. To-morrow must get to be to-day 
before it comes to its kingdom. To-day is the golden 
age of your life and mine. To-day is the garden of 
our career. To-day the love of God broods over our 
souls. To-day angels come on errands of sympathy 
and love to weary and tempted hearts. To-day all 
things are possible to him that believeth. To-day 
Christ is ready to bestow upon you the gift that will 
give you power to become a son of God. To-day 
the air is like magic. Breathe it with faith and cour- 
age. Act not in some to-morrow vague and illusory, 
but now. "To-day is the day of salvation !" 



XV 



The "God-Speeds" and Welcomes of Life 

"And they accompanied him unto the ship." — Acts xx, 38. 

**And so we went toward Rome. And from thence, when the 
brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum, and 
The Three Taverns : whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and 
took courage." — Acts xxviii, 14, 15. 

OvHR the doorway of the house of one of the 
honored members of this Church there is inscribed 
in large letters the phrase, " Welcome the coming and 
speed the parting guest." That has in it the essence 
of the theme upon which I wish to enlarge a little at 
this time. Hail and farewell are words often on our 
lips. It is a world of coming and going; a world of 
happy meetings and cruel separations ; a world of 
welcomes that gladden the heart and make the blood 
leap through the veins, the smiles flush the cheek; 
a world full of good-byes that cause the heart to 
sink, the throat to choke, the tears to wet the face, 
and the light of life and hope to die out of the he'art. 

It is for our comfort and encouragement that I 
have' chosen this theme. It has been suggested to me 
very naturally by the incidents of the season, as I 
have said in the depot and on the dock, "Good-bye," 
and "God-speed," to one family after another out of 
our Church flock, as they have gone away to the 
mountains, or the' woods, or the sea, seeking after 

132 



The God-Speeds^' and Welcomes of Life 133 



health and strength, or to visit their loved ones. 
These scenes of parting, and the accompanying 
friends to bid them "God-speed" on their way, have 
brought back this occasion in Paul's life, when he 
was going away from friends that were very dear to 
him, and whose hearts were deeply saddened with 
the thought that in all probability they would not see 
Jiis face again on earth. In their love for him they 
went with him as far as they could. If it had be'en 
possible they would never have let him go beyond 
the sight of their fond eyes, beyond the reach of 
their clinging hands. But since he must go, the'y 
gave him this last proof of their affection and fidelity, 
by going with him to the ship, and standing as we 
do now, in the depot or on the dock, to wave the 
handkerchief or the hand, as the car or the ship dis- 
appe'ars with our loved ones in the distance. 

Many thoughts are suggested by this theme. 
First, the difference in the quality of friendship. 
There is a friendship which is suave and polite and 
entertaining when the' friend is by, but which dis- 
misses the friend with a wave of the hand and a 
pleasant smile, and goes on about its work or pleasure 
while the friend goes on his way to the ship alone'. 
All hearts feel the difference between that and the 
fellowship of soul that is never satisfied with less than 
going to the ship. 

I think very few of us make as much as we ought 
of friendship, and very rare is the man or woman 
among us who in the fitting up of character, in the 
cultivation of graces, takes into account as one of the 
high aims oi life' the purpose to be well fitted to be an 



134 



The Motherhood of God 



ideal friend. And yet friendship, the power to be a 
good^friend, is one of the noblest characteristics of 
our lives. Hugh Black in his splendid book on friend- 
ship emphasizes his thought about it by calling his 
first chapter, "The Miracle' of Friendship." And I 
think all thoughtful readers will agree with him that 
the finest feature of Rudyard Kipling's work, and it 
is a constant feature of it, is the comradeship between 
commonplace soldiers of no high moral or spiritual 
attainments, and yet it is the strongest force in their 
lives and on occasion makes heroes of them. We 
feel that their faithfulness to each other is almost the 
only point at which their souls are reached. The 
threefold cord of his soldiers, vulgar in mind and 
common in thought as they are, is a cord which we 
feel is not easily broken, and it is their friendship and 
loyalty to each other which saves them from utter 
vulgarity. 

The Bible is enriched with many be'autiful friend- 
ships, but the most beautiful of them all is the oft- 
studied instance of David and Jonathan. They met 
amid the turmoil of the battlefield, and, as Professor 
Black says, knew each othe'r^at their first meeting to 
be nearer than kindred. By some subtle elective 
affinity they felt that they belonged to each other. 
Out of all the chaos of the' time and the disorder of 
their lives there arose for these two^souls a new and 
beautiful world, where reigned peace and love and 
sweet content. It was the miracle of the deattj_of 
self. Jonathan forgot his pride and David his am- 
bition. Their friendship was the smile of God, which 
changed the world to them, One of them it saved 



The God-Speeds^' and Welcomes of Life 135 



from the temptations of a squalid court, and the other 
from the sourness of an exile's life. Jonathan's 
princely soul had no room for envy or jealousy. 
David's frank nature rose to meet the magnanimity 
of his friend. In the kingdom of love there was no 
disparity between the king's son and the shepherd 
boy. Such a gift as each gave and received is not to 
be bought or sold. It was the fruit of the innate 
nobility of both; it softened and tempered a very 
trying time for both. Jonathan withstood his father's 
anger to shield his friend; David was patient with 
Saul for his son's sake. They agreed to be true to 
each other in their difhcult position. Close' and tender 
must have been the bond which had such fruit in 
princely generosity and mutual loyalty of soul. Fit- 
ting was the beautiful lament when David's heart was 
bereaved by the fall of his friend in battle at tragic 
Gilboa : ''I am distressed for thee, my brother Jon- 
athan : very pleasant hast thou been unto me : thy 
love to me was wonderful, passing the love of 
women." Love is always the most wonderful thing 
in the world, ever a new creation, beautiful and radi- 
ant to every loving soul. It is the miracle of spring 
to the cold, dull earth. 

Jesus Christ puts friendship as high-water mark 
in the ordinary working of human life. ''Greater love 
hath no man than this," said this expert in manhood, 
''that a man lay down his life for his friend." And 
this high-water mark has often been reached, and the 
most beautiful pages in human history are those 
which tell of the victory of love over selfishness be- 
tween friends. 



136 



The Motherhood of God 



Make much of your friends. Go with them as far 
as you can in their trials and in their joys. If they 
must separate from you for a time, either by going to 
another country or by going on in advancing educa- 
tion or growing success, go with them at least to the! 
ship, and let them have the memory of your fidelity 
and affection to inspire them on their journey. 

But the other side of the shield has its me'ssage, 
and a joyous one. Paul had had a long, hard journey, 
as a prisoner to Rome. He had been shipwrecked 
and near to drowning in the sea ; flung upon a barbar- 
ous island, he had been bitten by a poisonous ser- 
pent ; and at last, worn out with hard usage, and no 
doubt depressed and somewhat discouraged, he had 
landed in Italy and was on his way to Rome. The 
word of Christ had sifted through the country a little, 
and a few scattered Christians in the' Eternal City 
heard about the landing of Paul, and knowing that 
he was a prisoner for his faith's sake, their Christian^ 
love inspired them to go down several miles on the 
w^ay to meet Paul and give him the good cheer of 
knowing that he would not be without sympathy and 
prayerful interest in the trials that were before him. 
The account which Luke gives of its effect on Paul, 
though brief, is very beautiful. Luke says that when 
Paul saw these unexpected friends and heard their 
welcoming words of greeting, he "thanked God, and 
took courage." 

Those of us who have traveled much, and have' 
been away from home a good deal, know something 
of the added cheer after a long tiresome journey to 
find at the railway station or at the steamer's dock 



The God' Speeds'' md Welcomes of Life 137 



a welcoming face and a strong grip of the hand to 
greet us at the journey's end. Many a time I have 
reached the place where I was to preach or lecture 
after an all-night's or an all-day's railway trip, feehng 
so weary and lonely and homesick that I was almost 
in panic for fear of disgraceful failure to do my work 
well, but have had all my fears dissipated by the 
cheering welcome of some one waiting to receive me, 
who in some subtle way, unconscious to himself, 
passed on to me' his own pleasure in my coming and 
his own confidence in the success of the message I 
was to bring. Always go to rrieet your friends when 
you can. Go with your best smile, with your most 
cheerful thought, with sympathetic and encouraging 
presence ; make the home-coming inspiring and pro- 
phetic of happy and successful days to come. 

But surely our theme would suggest more than 
that. The coming of Paul's friends, so full of good 
cheer and welcome, nerved this brave man to new 
courage and filled his heart with thanksgiving to 
God that, however severe the struggles before him, 
he would not be alone, but there would be stanch 
friends near him on whom he could rely. Let us give 
our friends such comfort all along the way of life. 
What a blessed thing is sympathy, and how comfort- 
ing are words and deeds of cheer! Appreciation is 
food to the truest souls. Do not imagine that any 
man or woman ever reaches so lojty a position, or is 
ever so armored in strength or so self-sufificient in 
resources, but that a word of good cheer, a smile of 
appreciation from the' humblest friend on earth, is 
not needed or will not give blessing when received. 



138 The Motherhood of God 



]\Ien who have done great deeds have died of a 
broken heart by the way, with greater deeds yet, like 
unused arrows, in their quiver. Whenever you are 
in doubt about speaking words of sympathy and 
cheer, then speak them. Such a feeling is so precious 
and divine, so Christlike, and may have so much of 
the rich wine of hope, that you can not afford to risk 
some one's failing or dying for the lack of its ex- 
pression. 

The sweetest hope vrhich Christ holds out to us 
is the welcome which shall be given to us when the 
sunset of our human life has come and we near the 
end of our earthly career. It is surely a sweet provi- 
dence which makes a di^dne sort of homesickness 
take possession of the old. They long for the loved 
ones and the friends of their early years. 

Nans^n tells us that in the' successful voyage of 
himself and friends through the Arctic Ocean, the 
one enemy they could not overcome was homesick- 
ness. Half of their labors and three-fourths of their 
amusements v^-ere to escape the clutch which threat- 
ened to stifle the heart. They celebrated the king's 
birthday, their own birthdays, the ship's birthday, and 
even the birthdays of their dogs, all to drown remem- 
brance and stimulate happiness. Xansen confesses 
in his journal that there were evenings when, had they 
relaxed for a moment their efforts to keep up their 
spirits, they would have broken down in tears like 
children away at school. The brave-hearted explorer 
himself spent much time in writing in his journal 
dreams of home. He pictured scenes of his child- 
hood, of his boyish sports, of his marriage, of his 



The ^'God-Speeds'^ and Welcomes of Life 139 



baby's cunning ways. And again and again he ex- 
claims that all the honors of the schools and all the 
plaudits of the world are not worth the price he 
pays in his isolation from his little garden, his modest 
cottage, and the wife and baby who there await him. 
In the midst of their boisterous sports these great- 
limbed Norsemen look into each other's eyes and 
grow suddenly still, for each reads in another's face 
what he feels in his own heart, the desperate "heim- 
weh" which, Hke some neuralgia of the heart, threat- 
ens to crush out life itself with remorseless hand. 

The thought that saved these men from despair 
was the hope that they should again see the rugged 
coast of Norway and behold the welcome faces of 
their loved ones at home. And so with the heavenly 
homesickness God beckons us on toward a land that 
is new to us, and yet not new, because our old friends 
are there — those who have been faithful to us in the 
days of our childhood and youth ; who walked arm in 
arm with us in our pleasures, or toiled at our side 
in life's struggles; who have gone with us many a 
time to the ship and come again with welcome to 
meet us, but whose ship finally called for them, and 
we went to the dock with hearts as heavy as the 
friends of Paul, who sorrowed most of all because 
they should see his face no more. But those friends 
have long since seen Paul again ; and with what rap- 
ture he must have welcomed them on the heavenly 
shore ! And so our friends whom we **have loved 
long since and lost awhile" shall wait to greet us as 
our ship comes into the harbor of heaven. 



XVI 



The Romance of Christianity 

** Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done it unto me." — Matthew xxv, 40. 

The: romance of Christianity centers in the fact 
that there is in every man or woman the possible 
beauty and glory of the Christ. The dictionaries give 
four great qualities to the romantic. One' of these 
is that it appeals to the imagination. There is no 
stronger appeal made to the human imagination than 
that which Jesus Christ makes in this wonderful pic- 
ture of the judgment. He declares that, in that dread 
hour when all the nations of men shall be gathered 
before the throne of God and the' good shall be sepa- 
rated from the' bad, those on the right hand in re- 
ceiving their reward shall be addressed by their Lord 
in the most appreciative words, and he shall say unto 
them: "I was an hungered, and ye gave' me meat: I 
was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, 
and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : I 
was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye 
came unto me." 

And then the righteous shall be filled with aston- 
ishment. All their lives they had been longing to 
se'e him, wishing they might look into his face, think- 

140 



The Romance of ChrisUaniiy 141 

ing- how glorious it would be if they could but fol- 
low Mary's example and break their richest box 
of perfume on his head, craving in their humility 
the privilege of wetting his feet with their tears; 
and now to be told that they have ministered unto 
him in many an experience of sorrow and poverty 
fills them with amazement, and they cry out in their 
astonishment : "Lord, when saw we thee an hun- 
gered, and fed thee ? or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? 
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? 
or naked, and clothed thee ? Or when saw we thee 
sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?" And the 
King makes it clear to them by saying, "Inasmuch 
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have' done it unto me." 

Here you may find the heart of the missionary 
movement which has been lighting up the world for 
the last hundred years, and has given us the most 
romantic epoch of Christianity since that first cen- 
tury when the disciples spread over the then known 
world, carrying the news of the death and resurrec- 
tion and ascension of Jesus. Missionaries have gone 
forth not only into foreign lands, but into the neg- 
lected portions of our own country and into the 
slums of our great cities, putting aside' the ordinary 
luxuries and comforts of life with all joy, and tak- 
ing on themselves a thousand discomforts and bur- 
dens willingly, because they have seen in the dwarfed 
and stunted dweller in cellar or attic, or in the ig- 
norant and benighted heathen, the possible Christ. 
As the great sculptor of old saw in the block of 
marble, rugged and rough and soiled, the angel 
10 



142 The Motherhood of God 



which his genius could chisel from it, so these men 
and women who have gone as missionaries, at home 
or abroad, have gone' for Christ's sake, having in 
their minds and hearts a vision of Him who is ''the 
One altogether lovely" which they are to bring out 
in reality in the rude and sinful lives to which they 
minister. 

Here, I repeat, is the' central motive of the mis- 
sionary movement. Take this away, and the whole 
movement would collapse in a year. It is this su- 
preme appeal of Christ to the imagination of Chris- 
tian men and women. He' calls on them to see in 
the very poorest specimens of humanity his own 
brethren, and he declares that so great is his love' 
for these soiled and bruised and discouraged brothers 
and sisters that when we do anything for them he 
appreciates it and loves us for it in his heart as 
though we did it for him personally. 

Another element of the romantic is the quality 
of heroism, and Christianity has that quality. Christ 
is the one absolutely spotless hero that ever lived. 
He was rich with all the glory of heaven, and he 
put aside his riches and came' down to the poverty 
of earth, becoming really poor, that he might save 
the lost. We praise John Howard because he gave 
of his money and time to look after the condition 
of the prisoners in the jails of Europe; and rightly 
we call him a hero. But Jesus Christ gave up all 
the splendors of the skies and came down into the 
prison-house of the earth to save a race lost in sin, in 
bondage to the evil one, and gave himself, his time, 
his comfort, his life, that he might save them. He' 



The Romance of ChrisiianUy 



143 



did this to save men who did not care for him — to 
save people who abused him and even put him to 
death. Was there ever anything more heroic? 

All the other heroes of the world who deserve 
the title have but reflected rays of that heroic hght 
which radiates from Christ, who is the great cen- 
tral sun of heroism. And when Christianity ceases 
to be heroic it ceases to be Christian. The reason 
why many people who belong to the Church, and 
who are nominally Christian, get no joy or happiness 
out of their religion, and have no power for good 
in helping on Christianity in the world, is because 
they have lost the self-den3dng, heroic spirit which 
is the very atmosphere a Christian must breathe. 

If we could find one selfish, lazy day in the life 
of Jesus, when he let another suffer, no matter if 
he were a poor leper or a blind man, because he was 
taking his ease and having a good time, we should 
find a blot on his life that would forever be unsightly. 
But there is no such spot. From beginning to end the 
life of Jesus is heroic ; and it is this heroism of Christ, 
reflected in the life of his disciples who go about 
seeking to help others, that makes the Christianity 
of our own time romantic and powerful. It is weak 
only where it has ceased to be heroically Christian. 

You all know about Mary Reed, the Ohio girl 
who, coming home from the mission field to visit 
her mother, found out that she was a leper, and, 
with a quiet faith in God and a determination to 
do what she could for Christ in the years she had 
left, deliberately separated herself from all the loved 
ones of earth and set her face toward India, to live 



144 



The Motherhood of God 



among the lepers and reveal Christ to them until 
God should call her home. Dr. F. B. Meyer, the 
great English preacher, whose spiritual addresses 
have been such an inspiration to many Americans, 
says that one of the most memorable episodes of 
his recent tour in India was to look into the strong, 
sweet face and deep-set eyes, full of holy Hght, of 
Mary Reed. The prayers of a Christian world have 
been going up for Mary Reed; and though she has 
not been healed, as was beHeVed for awhile, she told 
Dr. Meyer that the disease has been ''wonderfully 
holden." She is conscious of the hidden presence of 
the disease, and sometimes its external symptoms 
are aggravated and more noticeable. Then again 
they recede. But through all these experiences, of 
which she says — and we may well believe her — that 
only God knows how awful they are, Mary Reed 
goes on, day by day, working with lepers, most of 
whom are far advanced in the ravages of this most 
loathsome of diseases, with a cheerful face', with smil- 
ing eyes, with trusting words, and with a heart that 
God has enabled to say, not with a sigh, but with a 
song, *'Thy will be done." She has these verses often 
on her lips: 

** No chance hath brought this ill to me ; 
*Tis God's sweet will, so let it be ; 
He seeth what I can not see. 

There is a need-be for each pain ; 
And he will some day make it plain 
That earthly loss is heavenly gain." 

Another element of the' romantic is the marvel- 
ous. Christianity is, in this respect, the most ro- 



The Romance of Christianity 145 



mantic movement of all the ages. Its power to 
seize hold upon the hungry longings of ignorant and 
brutal savage's and change them into saints of God, 
illustrating in them every noble quality known to 
man, is the most marvelous exhibition that the world 
holds. 

In a speech delivered in England, Henry M. 
Stanley, the celebrated explorer, told the remarkable 
story of a missionary Bible. He said Janet Living- 
stone, the sister of David Livingstone, had made him 
a present of a richly-bound Bible. Not liking to 
risk it on a voyage around the Victoria Nyanza, 
he' asked his traveling companion to lend him his 
somewhat torn and stained copy; and he sailed on 
his way to Uganda, little thinking what a revolu- 
tion in Central Africa that book would make. He 
staid in Uganda for some time ; and one day, dur- 
ing a morning levee, the subject of religion was 
broached, and he' happened to strike an emotional 
chord in the king's heart by making a casual refer- 
ence to angels. King and chiefs were moved as 
one man to hear more about angels. His verbal 
descriptions of them we're not sufficient. 

Finally he said to the king, "I have a Book with 
me which will tell you far better, not only what 
angels are, but what God and his blessed Son are 
like, to whom the angels are but ministering 
servants." 

"Fetch it," they eagerly cried. "Fetch it now, 
and we will wait." 

The Book was brought, and Mr. Stanley read 
the tenth chapter of Ezekiel and the seventh chapter 



146 



The Motherhood of God 



of Revelation from the ninth verse to the end; and 
as he read the eleventh and twelfth verses you could 
have heard a pin drop. And when he read the verses 
beginning, "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst 
any more ; neither shall the sun light on them, nor 
any heat," Stanley had a presentiment that Uganda 
would eventually be Vv^on to Christ. 

He' was not permitted to carry that Bible away. 
Mtesa never forgot the wonderful words nor the 
startling effect they had had on him and on his chiefs. 
As the explorer was turning away from his coun- 
try, the king's messenger came and cried: ''The' 
Book ! Mtesa wants the Book !" It was given to 
him. To-da}^ the Christians number thousands in 
Uganda. They have proved their faith at the stake, 
under the knob-stick, and under torture till death. 

Another element of the romantic is that of the 
supernatural. The truly romantic has something out 
of the ordinary in it. We talk of romantic love, of 
romantic devotion, of romantic heroism; and we 
always mean by it that there is something beyond 
the ordinary, commonplace, prosaic experiences of 
life in the emotion or experience which we thus 
characterize. In a higher sense yet Christianity is 
romantic, in that it is pervaded with the Spirit which 
is above and beyond any human power. No man, 
however magnetic or forceful, can do what igno- 
rant and humble and stammering messengers of 
Christ have wrought when clothed upon with the 
power of the Holy Spirit. Those first disciples of 
Jesus — his circle of chosen friends — were weak, frail 
creatures until the living power of the Spirit of God 



The Romance of ChristUnity 



147 



possessed their hearts. Peter, the strongest of them 
so far as human boldness and forcefulness of char- 
acter are concerned, was put into a panic and denied 
his Lord through the sneer of a servant-girl. At 
the cross, in the face of the rabble and the mob, 
they forsook him and fled. But when, after the res- 
urrection and ascension of Jesus, they tarried in 
prayer and communion with God until they were 
clothed upon and inspired by the Holy Spirit they 
went forth to lead lives so brave, so self-sacrificing, 
so heroic, so loving, so powerful that they carried 
the gospel to the ends of the earth. Neither Roman 
power nor Grecian culture nor Jewish formalism 
were any match for the Holy Spirit that inspired 
their hearts, quickened their speech, and glowed in 
their faces as they told the story of their crucified, 
risen, and ascended Lord. 

It is this romantic Christianity which I proclaim 
to you. It has lost none of the elements of its power 
or attractiveness. Christ is still making his splen- 
did appeal to the imagination of men and women. 
What you do for the humblest neighbor, whether 
it be in your own town, in the black belt of the 
South, in the wigwam of the Indian, or in the larger 
mission-field afforded by the teeming milHons of 
Asia, you are doing for Christ, and you may have 
the hope of helping to bring out the Christ in the 
man or woman to whom you minister. The' heroism 
which glorified the early Church is just as possible, 
just as beautiful, and as surely owned of God to- 
day as in the first century. The successes that crown 
the effort of self-sacrificing and heroic devotion are 



148 The Motherhood of God 



as marvelous in India under Bishop Thoburn, in 
China under Brewster, or in our home fields, where 
Christ-loving souls seek for the image of their Lord 
in ragged garments, as in any age of the world's 
history. The supernatural Spirit of God has not de- 
serted the Church, but waits only for the opening of 
the door of our hearts, only for the surrender of 
our lives, to sit upon us like cloven tongues of fire 
and speak through us to the conviction of sin and 
the salvation of the soul. 

Is it not true that, as I speak, some of you feel 
that such a religion, accepted in all its romantic full- 
ness, would work a glorious transformation in your 
lives? Is it not true that many of us who have 
honestly been trying to be Christians, who have, 
it may be, carried many burdens for Christ and 
have known in our own lives some experience, some" 
rewards of labor, still have come so far short of 
the romantic possibilities of the Christian life that 
we feel it would be a glorious thing if we could begin 
over again and give ourselves anew to Christ and 
to the service of his brethren? Brothers and sis- 
ters, let us pray God that we may not only be 
Christian, but that we may be Christian in a heroic, 
enthusiastic, marvelous, supernatural, romantic man- 
ner; that we may not only have the name of Jesus, 
but that the beauty and glory of the Master's spirit 
may so clothe' us about that we shall give hope to 
the weary, courage to the faint, and salvation to the 
sinful. 



XVII 



Meshullam, the Boar ding-House Roomer 
Who Did His Duty 

* 'After him repaired Meshullam the son of Berechiah over against 
his chamber." — Nehemiah hi, 30. 

The; book of Nehemiah contains a remarkably 
interesting story. Although he was in exile, Nehe- 
miah was a brilliant young man who, by sheer force 
of personal merit, had pushed himself to the front 
in a strange country, until he held the highly hon- 
orable place of cupbearer to the king. He was 
not only a strong man, but he was a very cheerful 
and pleasant personality. No doubt the king liked 
to have' him around largely on that account. 

It would be a much happier world, and a much 
brighter one in every way, if everybody thoroughly 
understood how much the simple fact of personal 
cheerfulness adds to one's strength in accomplishing 
things and contributes to make us desirable person- 
alities to others. None of us will go around hunting 
after sour people to deal with when we can have folks 
with a cheerful countenance and a hopeful person- 
ality to take their places. 

One day there came to the court where Nehe- 
miah was engaged some people from his native city 

149 



The Motherhood of God 



who had a very sad story to tell concerning the sor- 
rowful condition of Jerusalem. Not only were the 
walls beaten down and much of the city destroyed, 
but, worst of all, the people were discouraged. Nehe- 
miah was filled with grief ; and despite everything 
he could do it showed in his face v/hen he went be- 
fore the king, and he noticed at once the contrast 
with Xehemiah's usual cheerful appearance, and 
compelled him to tell the cause of his sorrow. 
Prayerfully and tremblingly the young exile repeated 
the story that had broken his own heart. To his 
great pleasure and astonishment, the king sent him 
away to Jerusalem with an escort of troops and 
with abundant means to insure the possibility of his 
rebuilding the walls and reviving the courage and 
fortunes of the city of his love. 

The story of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusa- 
lem under the' supervision of Nehemiah shows above 
everything else the power of a single earnest person- 
ality to awaken enthusiasm among a people. Nehe- 
miah was dead in earnest. His heart was in the 
matter of the rehabilitation of the glory of Jerusa- 
lem. He gave his whole soul up to the work. He 
not only beheved it could be done, but he beUeVed 
that, by the help of God and the people, he could do it 
himself. Such earnestness is always contagious. 
How the world needs it now! Churches need it. 
It is infinitely pathetic and pitiful to see, here and 
there over the country. Churches where everything 
is dead and formal, pews only half filled, interest in 
the prayer-meeting and Sunday-school dying out, 
little or no spiritual vigor and vitality, and a general 



Meshutlamf the Boarding-House Roomer 151 

feeling that the only hope of doing anything is to 
send away for some outside evangelist to come and 
galvanize their local conditions into life. Such a 
Church needs to pass through such an experience as 
Nehemiah had in the palace. They need some nights 
of agony and tears and repentance. They need to 
have their own preacher and their own stewards and 
trustees and Sunday-school teachers catch the spirit 
of that earnestness which makes them feel that it 
is better to die than that the holy cause whose name 
they bear should be shamed and humiliated and 
overthrown. There is nothing human that can com- 
pare with personal earnestness. Genius nor elo- 
quence nor music nor wealth — none of these, nor 
all of these, will take the place of blood-hot ear- 
nestness. 

Well, Nehemiah had earnestness. He was a 
preacher on fire, and the people no doubt came to- 
gether at first simply out of curiosity to see the blaze. 
But it is dangerous business going to listen to a 
man really on fire if you do n't mean to become a 
part of the conflagration. As they listened to him 
they caught his spirit of shame and humiliation at 
their disgrace. But they caught more than that: 
they became inflated with his confidence in God. 
They began to believe, as he did, that if a thing was 
right and ought to be done it could be done; and 
they went at it. You will search a long while to 
find in the story of any people' a more hearty, en- 
thusiastic, and effective co-operation than was shown 
by these people in rebuilding the wall of their city. 
All thought of caste and class disappeared, as it 



152 The Motherhood of God 



always does when great earnestness in an important 
cause possesses the hearts of the people. All the 
people were at work. The goldsmiths, the apothe- 
caries, the office-holders, the blacksmiths, and the 
priests were all at it. To save time, and perhaps 
to get the added interest that would come to the 
work, a great many people set to work over against 
their own house's where they lived. In that way no 
time was lost in going to and from their work, and 
there would be a special desire in a man to make 
the wall strong and beautiful in front of his own 
home. 

Now, in the midst of the record of the work done 
by these' individual citizens I have run across a little 
fragment of story that is to me exceedingly interest- 
ing. Along the line of the wall on one side there 
was a boarding-house where they let out lodgings ; 
and one young man whose name was Meshullam, 
who was the son of Berechiah, had a room in that 
house. Now, as a rule, the man who is simply a 
roomer in the house would excuse himself from tak- 
ing any personal interest or holding himself person- 
ally responsible for the relation of the house to the 
city. He would be likely to say : "I 'm only a boarder, 
only a roomer, here anyhow. Let the proprietor fix 
up the wall ; that is his business." But Meshullam 
seems to have been a young man of a good deal of 
public spirit, and so he volunteered to build up the 
wall in front of his room. 

Only a fragment, as it is, of human story, it has 
in it an important and distinct message to us. It 
suggests the importance of remembering our respon- 



Meshuttam, the Boarding -House Roomer 153 

sibility for personal character. We can not shift 
to anybody else's shoulders — not upon our land- 
lady, or our family, or upon any one — responsibility 
for the individual man or woman we are. We can 
not personally be impure or trivial or mean with- 
out our influence being full of harm and discourage- 
ment to other people. On the' other hand, we can 
not be pure, cheerful, courageous, wholesome per- 
sonalities without being often unconsciously an inspi- 
ration and a blessing to others. 

"No stream from its source 
Flows seaward, how lonely soever its course, 
But what some land is gladdened. No star ever rose 
And set without influence somewhere. Who knows 
What earth needs from earth's lowest creatures? No life 
Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife, 
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby." 

We' have also suggested in the conduct of 
MeshuUam the contrasting fact that people are al- 
ways tempted to slacken their fidelity to duty when 
living in temporary surroundings, and are relieved 
by their situation from feeling the responsibility of 
permanent conditions. The man who owns his own 
house in a community, who has settled down to 
spend his life there, has a certain feeling of responsi- 
bility about his conduct from the knowledge that 
any false step he might take which would offend 
his neighbors or bring disgrace upon himself would 
have lasting and permanent effect upon his success 
and happiness. But there is a temptation to a man 
in a boarding-house', who is a mere roomer in the 
place, to feel that if things become uncomfortable 



154 The Motherhood of God 



there it is easy to pack his trunk and shift to some- 
where else, where he is not so well known. 

I was once driving with a mayor of Boston in a 
remote part of the city when a little boy, ragged and 
barefooted, pulled his torn cap from his head of 
shaggy hair and said, very respectfully, "How are 
ye, Mr. Mayor !" The mayor turned to me with a 
queer smile, and said, "You see, I have to walk 
pretty straight because they know me so well.'' The 
remark left an impression on my mind. There is a 
strong wall of helpfulness in the consciousness that 
you are well known, that what you do will count, 
that to do wrong may mean great wrong, and to 
do good will have wide influence. IMany a man is 
held up to his work, when under trying circum- 
stances he is ready to faint, by the strength that 
comes from the consciousness that he can not fall 
alone, but that multitudes of others will be saddened 
and hurt if he fails to do his best. 

But my message and the message of our theme is 
that, though a man is only a roomer in the place, 
there are important duties in front of his chamber 
window, duties to the people next door, duties to 
the people who room on the same floor, who are 
fellow-tenants with him at the sam.e table ; and to 
do these duties honestly and well is to receive the 
approbation of his own conscience and the approval 
of heaven. The tremendous success of Xehemiah 
came about, not because a number of people of great 
wealth and influence and ability gave him their 
patronage and help — there were none of that kind 
left in Jerusalem — but prosperity came again be- 



MeshuUam, the Boarding-House Roomer 155 

cause multitudes of people like Meshullam, who had 
only a little cottage or a rented room in a board- 
ing-house and could only turn to with their own 
physical strength and ingenuity, set to work with en- 
thusiasm and devotion, and did the little that they 
could do in front of their own doors. 

So it will be in the final conquests of Christianity 
and civilization. When that great day shall come 
it will be found that the world has been ransomed 
and redeemed, not by a few great geniuses and 
giants, but by a multitude of earnest souls who have 
builded the wall strong and true in front of their 
own windows. Let no man fail to speak the kind 
word, to do the self-denying deed, to give the hand- 
shake of good cheer because of the narrowness of 
his sphere of influence. God will gather together 
the fragments of good, of unselfishness, of beauty, 
and will glorify the world with them in his own good 
time'. 

There is a German story which tells of the Golden 
Age when the angels played with the peasant chil- 
dren in the sands, and from the gates of heaven, 
which stood wide' open, a heavenly radiance de- 
scended upon the children like a gentle rain upon the 
earth. The people looked from earth into the open 
heavens. They saw the' blessed ones walking among 
the shining stars ; and the people on the earth greeted 
the angels up in heaven, and the angels greeted the 
people down on earth. But the most beautiful of all 
was the wonderful music which floated toward earth 
through the open gates of heaven. The dear God 
himself had written the notes and a thousand angels 



156 The Motherhood of God 



played upon sweet violins and trumpets. When the 
first notes reached the wondering world, all things 
became silent. The very wind stopped its rustling 
among the trees, and the water in the sea and riv- 
ers stood still. But the people nodded to one another. 
They had such a wonderful feeling in their souls that 
it would be' impossible to describe it to a poor hu- 
man heart. 

And thus it was at that time. But it did not 
continue long; for one day the good God, as a pun- 
ishment, caused the gates of heaven to be closed, 
saying to his angels, "Cease your music; for I am 
sad." Then the angels became sad also ; and each 
one, with his music-leaf, sat down upon a cloud and, 
with tiny, golden shears cut his leaf of music into 
separate pieces, which he let flutter down to the 
earth beneath. Here the wind seized the little pieces 
of music and blew them hither and thither Hke snow- 
flakes, over mountains and valleys, and scattered 
them in all parts of the earth. 

And the people caught them, each a piece, one 
person a larger piece and another a smaller one. 
They cherished these little pieces of music with the 
greatest care, and considered them very precious ; 
for were they not portions of the heavenly music 
which had sounded so marvelously beautiful? But 
after a time there arose strife and discord among 
the people; for every one believed that he had got- 
ten the best part of the music; and at last each de- 
clared that what he had was the only true celestial 
music, and that what the others possessed was noth- 
ing but vain show and deceit. Whoever wished to 



MeshulUm, the Boarding -House Roomer 157 

be very wise (and there were many) made a great 
flourish at the beginning and at the' end of his piece 
of music, and imagined he had something quite re- 
markable. One person played A, another sang B. 
One played in the major key and another in the 
minor key. No one' could make out what the other 
was doing. In short, says the little story, it was 
such a noise as one might expect to hear in a vil- 
lage school. And thus it is to-day. 

But when the end of the world comes, and mor- 
tals shall press, like children at Christmas, eagerly 
toward the portals of heaven, when the gates of 
heaven shall be opened wide, then will the dear God 
have all the pie'ces of his celestial music-book gath- 
ered up again — the great as well as the small, and 
even the very small pieces, upon which there is only 
one note — and the' angels shall again unite the frag- 
ments, and the heavenly music shall be heard again, 
even more beautiful than before. But the people 
shall stand amazed and ashamed, saying one' to an- 
other : "Thou hadst that ! I had that ! But not until 
now has is sounded so wonderfully beautiful. Now 
all the parts are together again and in their right 
places." 

There is a vein of eternal truth in the little Ger- 
man story. It is only a fragment of truth, only a 
fragment of good, after all, that any one of us is 
able to comprehend or achieve. And we are to 
be helpful in bringing about the salvation of the 
world, not by claiming that the little bit of Divine 
melody that has fallen on our ear is the only stanza 
of heavenly music, but by seeking to live with such 
11 



158 



The Motherhood of God 



open mind and soul that all the music of heaven 
shall be sweet to us, and dwelling in such fellowship 
with Christ that we shall have peace and harmony 
with all those who are seeking to learn the heavenly 
tunes. Thus shall we add our note to the completion 
of the' great anthem which shall swell from a re- 
deemed world "unto Him that loved us, and washed 
us from our sins in his own blood." 



XVIII 



The High Noon of Human Life 

**Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, 
where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon." — Song of Solomon i, 7. 

Whatever the original purpose of this unique 
and beautiful love song of the Bible, it abounds in 
pictures rarely suggestive in their teaching. The 
picture we are to study is the noontide, with its 
privileges, its burdens, and its own peculiar con- 
ditions. 

We see a shepherd leading out his flock of sheep 
in the morning, fresh from the night's rest in the 
fold, for the day's feeding. They are active; and 
the cool air of the morning, the very exuberance of 
life, as well as the promptings of hunger, causes them 
to go rapidly forth seeking the green pasture grounds 
of the hills. The shepherd has thought out the day's 
wandering, and has in his mind the pastures where 
he will lead them through the feeding hours, so as 
to bring them at the nooning to some lofty high- 
land, where the shade is possible, and where the fresh 
breeze' of the mountains will cool the air and give 
a chance for rest until the sun is low enough in the 
heavens to start them on the homeward way and 
toward the evening fold. 

159 



i6o The Motherhood of God 

Of course, the noon that I am to talk to you abaut 
is the noon of human life. Not a great deal is said 
about it in sermons, perhaps not so much as there 
ought to be. We have abundance of good advice 
and urgent appeals and warnings for the youth pass- 
ing through the morning hours, when the bright 
sunshine turns the sparkHng dew into diamonds, 
w^hen the birds, building their nests, sing songs of 
the hope and the heaven that is to be — the hope of 
victory and the heaven of love. We have songs and 
sermons for the dark days and the trying experiences 
of defeat, as well as the great occasions of success 
and triumph. We have' much to say about old age 
and gathering the sheaves for the garner at the last. 
But the noontime, when the sun is directly overhead, 
"the burden and heat of the day," when the soul 
longs for the shade and a chance to breathe before 
entering on the home-run of life — who talks about 
that? 

One of the sweetest pictures of the Bible in por- 
traying to us the attitude of the Divine mind toward 
men and women is the figure of the shepherd. In 
the Old Testament, God calls himself a shepherd; 
and Christ says no sweeter word than when he de- 
clares, "I am the Good Shepherd." Now, if a shep- 
herd of the earth, earthy, knowing the weakness of 
his flock, does not forget the noontime and its bur- 
den of heat, but plans to spend it where the shade 
is deep, the breezes cool, and the refreshing spring 
not far away, surely the Shepherd God, who looks 
upon all these human wanderers as members of his 
flock, will not forget their needs, and will plan for 



The High Noon of Human Life i6i 

the noon of life — the high noon, when the burden 
and heat are great. 

Henry Drummond tells us of two painters, each 
of whom painted a picture' to illustrate his concep- 
tion of rest. The first chose for his scene a still, 
lone lake among the far-off mountains. The second 
threw on his canvas a thundering waterfall, with a 
fragile birch-tree bending over the foam. At the 
fork of the branch, almost wet with the cataract's 
spray, a robin sat on its nest. The first, Drummond 
declared, was only stagnation, while the second was 
rest. Now, any rest that can come to the Christian 
in the' noontide of middle life in a world like ours 
must be Hke that which the robin found in the midst 
of the spray and the thunder of a waterfall. It must 
be a self-composure, a peace, which comes from our 
consciousness of God's care and love for us and our 
assurance that he will not fail us in any great emer- 
gency of our lives. 

An army officer says that the coolest thing he 
ever saw done was the act of a Western cowboy in 
stopping a cattle stampede. A herd of some six or 
eight hundred had become frightened at something, 
and broke away, pell mell, rushing wildly in a panic. 
But the herder did not get excited at all, even when 
he saw his herd going straight for a high bluff, where 
they would certainly tumble into the' canyon and 
be killed. When a herd like that gets to going it 
can't stop, no matter whether the cattle rush to death 
or not. Those in the rear crowd those ahead, and 
away they go. The officer said he regarded the 
herd as lost ; but the herder spurred up his mustang. 



1 62 The Motherhood of God 



made a little detour, came in right in front of the 
herd, cut across their path at a right angle, and then 
galloped leisurely on the edge of that precipice, 
halted, and looked around at that mass of 

cattle coming right toward him. He was as cool 
as if carved in marble, though the ofHcer expected 
to see him killed, and was so excited he could not 
speak. But as the officer watched he noticed that 
the leaders of the stampede, when they had gotten 
within a few hundred yards of the blufT, tried to 
slacken their pace, though they could not do so very 
quickly. But the whole herd seemed to want to 
stop, and by the time the rear ranks reached that 
point he was surprised to see them stop and com- 
mence to nibble at the grass. Then the whole herd 
stopped, wheeled, straggled back, and went to fight- 
ing for a chance to eat where the' rear guard was. 
The herder had opened a big bag of salt which he 
had brought out from the ranch to give to the cattle, 
and as he galloped across the herd's course he had 
emptied the bag. Every animal sniffed that line of 
salt, and, of course, that broke up the stampede. 
The cowboy had staked his Hfe on their acting in 
that way, and was perfectly at peace because of his 
faith in the success of his plan. 

In the wild stampede of himian life in which we 
are living, the only safety and peace that can come 
to us is the assurance that we are doing right, that 
we are pleasing God, and that our lives are dear 
to him since we are doing the vrork which he has 
given us to do. 

The noontide of Hfe has many trials and tempta- 



The High Noon of Human Life 163 

tions peculiar to itself. The full burden of life is 
on our shoulders. If we are ever to do work worth 
doing, we feel that we must do it now; that ere the 
afternoon shadows come, we must bare our shoulders 
to carry the heaviest burdens of our lives. In this 
period of life we are likely to be' lonely in many ways. 
While we were younger, through the morning years, 
during which we were coming to our maturity, 
father and mother, and older friends, have sym- 
pathized with us and defended us, relieving us, 
when they could, of life's heaviest loads, and 
cushioning our shoulders always with their sym- 
pathy and love. To the old, too, there is a 
compensating compassion and gentleness which, in 
Christian lands, good people' always show to those 
who are beginning to feel the weakness and in- 
firmity of age. All this the man at noon misses. 
If he is to be comforted it must be with something 
different from that which consoles either the youth 
or the aged. The world seems to feel that it is his 
hour to give^sympathy, not to receive. The strength 
which has come to him through all the years of 
youth and growth must now be' exerted to the help 
of his race and time. And in spite of all the good 
fellowship of life', many a man, many a woman, find 
the loneliest^ time of all their career to be the noon- 
day of life, when they stand in the sultry heat of 
life's middle years, seeking bravely to carry the bur- 
dens laid upon them. 

Now our study will be of no value unless we 
get out of it some real corpfort for those who find 
themselves so placed. The thought I want to put into 



164 



The Motherhood of God 



my own heart, and into yours, is this assurance that 
God does not forget his children, even in the lonely 
noontide. He knows that the middle-aged man or 
woman is only a child grown tall, and that though 
the shoulders are broad, and the figure proud and 
graceful, the heart craves sympathy and fellowship ^ 
such as only the deep well of Divine tenderness is ' ^/ 
full enough to grant. I think there is no time in 
our lives when we need to be more careful in keep- 
ing up our communion with God, and in meditat- 
ing much on his goodness and love. Have you 
never noticed how the Lord sometimes freshens 
the air in the middle of the day? The morning is 
bright and strong and cheering, but as the day rises 
toward the full it comes to be sultry and oppressive. 
And then sometimes God gathers the thunder-storrn 
and pours out a summer shower that settles the 
dust and cleanses the air, and the evening comes 
on sweet and fragrant, more beautiful even than 
the morning. So God knows how to refresh the 
tired heart of man. As Stopford Brooke sings : 

"A little sun, a little rain, 

A soft wind blowing from the west. 
And woods and fields are sweet again, 

And warmth wdthin the mountain's breast. 
So simple is the earth we tread, 

So quick with love and life her frame, 
Ten thousand years have dawned and fled, 

And still her magic is the same. 

A little love, a litde trust, 

A soft impulse, a sudden dream, 
And life as dry as desert dust 

Is fresher than the mountain stream. 



The High Noon of Human Life 165 

So simple is the heart of man, 

So ready for new hope and joy, 
Ten thousand years since it began 

Have left it younger than a boy." 

As the shepherd, sometimes, when the heat is 
too great for the safety of his flock leads them into 
the deep shade and keeps them back from any fooHsh^ 
exposure to the heat, even though the silly sheep 
might be wilHng to take the risk, so God, the Shep- 
herd of human life, many times leads us into the 
shade and hedges us about from the' danger we 
would be willing to risk. 

There is a large bird found in the Philippine' 
Islands which has a peculiar way of protecting not 
only its little one, but the mother bird as well. The 
mother bird hatches out only one_ fledgeling at a 
time, instead of having a ne'st full, as most birds 
do. When it is time to lay the egg the father bird 
selects a hollow tree, into which the mother bird 
goes. The head of the house then se§Js up the 
opening of the tree with mud, leaving only a small 
hole through which he supplies his mate with food 
until the young bird is hatched and large enough 
to care for itself. The reason for this strange sort 
of care, which seems more like imprisonment, is 
that there are a great many snakes in the forests 
of these islands, which could get into the hollow 
tree and destroy both the mother and the young 
bird. Does not God often protect us in the same 
way? We are held back from some freedom which 
appeals to us. We are' compelled to say with Paul, 
when he looked at the crooked characters made by 



i66 



The Motherhood of God 



his pen because of the chain on his wrist, "Remem- 
ber my bonds." But afterward, looking back, we 
find that the things which hindered us from doing 
what we wanted to do were truly God's wall of pro- 
tection that shut us in from danger and prevented 
us from disaster. 

In the noontide, as in the morning and evening 
of life, we must find our safety and our rest in God. 
The Psalmist in the' great stress of life declared, 
"I will Hft up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence 
Cometh my help." We must look there too. 

*' We journey through lowland shadows, 

Through the dull, dull mist and rain, 
O, chilhng the fogs and the marshes, 

And the winds from the lonely plain ! 
And our hearts grow sick with longing 

For the beautiful paths untrod, 
For we know that away above us 

Stretch the glad, green hills of God. 

Our feet are chained to the valley. 

We plow and we sow and reap ; 
There are strifes and toils for the noonday, 

And a grave where at night we sleep. 
But a something speaks within us : 

' Look away from the spade and the clod, 
0 soul, look up for thy birthright, 

And away to the hills of God ! 

In the winds that sweep their summits 

Is healing for all thy ills ; 
Up, up ! till thou feelest the current ! 

There is help, there is help in the hills. 
Let darkness and sore disaster 

But sunder thee from the sod. 
And know thou shalt thrive in the sunlight 

That crowneth the hills of God.' " 



XIX 



The Coin that Rings True 

'When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." — ^JOB 
XXIII, lo. 

Thk stamp of a coin is like the clothes and man- 
ners of a man. They make the introduction. If 
the stamp is one of a nation whose' credit is good, 
it makes the coin welcome to us. But as, on further 
acquaintance, we may find a well-dressed and polite 
man to be a fraud and unworthy of confidence, so 
with a coin. It may have on it an image of Queen 
Victoria or of the American eagle; but if the coin 
is counterfeit, made of base material, then the stamp 
it bears can not make it valuable or desirable' to us. 

Some one has said, *'It is the ring of a coin that at- 
tests its value, be there an emperor's or a queen's 
head upon it." And the same is true of character. 
The outer presence, the education, the manners, 
and incidental surroundings — these' form the in- 
troduction, the stamp; but it is the ring in days of 
trial and struggle that tells whether the character :i 
is true. 

This human Hfe of ours is not a holiday excur- 
sion, and the coin of character must be tested under 
trying conditions. A counterfeit appears as good 

167 



i68 



The Motherhood of God 



as a real coin until you want to use it. It may 
weigh as much, take up just as much room in your 
pocket, may bear the inspection of running your 
fingers over it, or even of superficial investigation; 
but it is the ring on the counter in the' day when it 
is your only coin, and it stands between you and 
hunger or need, that is the test between the true 
coin and the counterfeit. 

So with character. Cowardice appears as good 
as courage' in passing a review-stand. It is the smoke 
of the battle, the day of danger, when the ring of 
the human coin tells its value. Many a bully passes 
for a brave man until run alongside of real courage 
under fire; then the counterfeit shows for the ugly 
thing it is. 

A quiet Quaker in a Western town began the 
publication of a weekly paper, and soon showed 
his colors by attacking the liquor traffic. He pub- 
lished the facts about some of the worst saloons 
and resorts, calling them "ulcers on the' body of the 
community." He was specially marked and pointed 
in regard to one particular saloon. The day after 
the issue of the paper a big-fisted saloon-keeper came 
into the editor's office, and in domineering tones 
said, "See here, did you write this?" 

The editor glanced carelessly over the column 
indicated and answered in a cool voice, "Yea, I 
did." 

Then with a volley of profanity and abuse the 
saloon-keeper ended by saying, "Do you know that 
hurts my business?" 

"Yea, and I am glad it does." 



The Coin thai Rings True 169 



"You are glad it doe's?" 

"Yea, friend, that is what I said." 

For a moment the saloon-keeper was too sur- 
prised by this unexpected answer to reply. Then 
he said : "Well, I 'm here just to warn you that if 
you print any more against the liquor business in 
this town, we '11 make it hot for you. Now you 've 
had your warning, and you can take it or not." 

"And supposing I do n't take it ?" 

"Then look out for yourself, that 's all." 

"That is, thee means that personal violence will 
be used?" Upon this the' editor took some notes 
on a page of paper that lay before him. 

"It means that we will kick you out of the town." 

"Kick you out of the town," repeated the editor, 
writing it down. "Good; and is that all?" 

"We '11 burn your shanty over your head if you 
ever come back again, and tar and feather you." 

"Burn shanty, tar and feather," repeated the 
Quaker, writing down the notes of the interview. 
Then looking up quietly he said, "Go on, friend, 
anything more?" 

The bully was somewhat mystified and showed 
signs of weakening. The editor paused and waited. 
After a moment's silence the saloon-keeper growled, 
"We will make it hot for you." 

"I think thee' said that before," quietly remarked 
the Quaker, and laying down his pen he calmly be- 
gan to sharpen a pencil. 

"We mean it, too," snarled the saloon-keeper, 
beginning to think he had caught a Tartar. 

"I am glad to hear thee' speak so frankly," re- 



170 



The Motherhood of God 



plied the editor; and turning his chair around, he 
looked at the angry man with a pair of blue eyes 
that showed anything but fear. "But does thee know 
what I intend to do? I shall pubHsh every word 
of this interview thee has been pleased to give me. 
I shall let the good citizens know that thee has 
threatened me and my property with violence, and 
if in the future any violence is done, the authorities 
will know upon whom they have to lay their hand. 
More than this, I shall tell more of the doings at 
thy place than I have yet told. And more ; if thee 
comes here again to threaten me with what thee 
and thy comrades in sin propose' to do, I will turn 
thee over to the authorities for trespassing on my 

property. Thy name is George W . Thy saloon 

is at the corner of Third and Pine. Now that I have 
all the particulars, thee may go while I write the 
article." 

There was an impressive silence. The cowed 
bully eyed the editor with baffled rage and hesitancy, 
but the eye of the Quaker was calm as a mirror. 
Then the bully, whose pretended courage was never 
anything more than the counterfeit of the brute, 
slunk downstairs and back to his den. The Quaker^s 
courage rang true because it was built on principle 
and was true gold through and through. 

This world of trial and temptation is God's work- 
shop for building up true character. We are assured 
that character is to be tried as gold is tried. And 
we all know by personal observation that true char- 
acter is developed, and the dross is taken away, 
by fidelity under hard experiences. We get strong 



The Coin thai Rings True 



171 



muscles by using faithfully the strength that we have. 
So the power to resist evil of any kind is strengthened 
every time we deny ourselves a sinful inclination 
or desire. Positive righteousness is strengthened 
in the' same way. If you give yourself over to do a 
generous deed, stretch forth your arm to protect 
a weaker brother, or take the load of some faint- 
ing fellow upon your own shoulder and carry it, your 
generosity, your kindness of heart, your brotherli- 
ne'ss of spirit is purged of its temptation to selfish- 
ness, and the gold of your character is purified. All 
the Christian graces grow by exercise'; each of them 
is subject to the law of growth, and is strengthened 
by discipline. 

Some one asked General Joseph Wheeler, who 
gained new laurels in the Spanish-American War, 
how it was that the sleepy farms of the South pro- 
duce such whirlwind fighters in such small packages. 
"Well, gentlemen," said the little general, "I be- 
lieve I '11 have to give you the answer an old ^cracker' 
woman once gave me when I asked her a similar 
question. Not many years ago I had occasion to 
make a saddle-journey through the pine barrens of 
Georgia, where 'most everybody is a 'cracker' and 
mighty shiftless. One day, however, I rode into 
a little community that showed such signs of thrift 
as to be quite out of keeping with the general char- 
acter of the barrens. I rode up to a cabin where a 
gaunt old woman stood in the doorway, and asked 
her who owned these' little farms that were so well 
kept. 

" 'That farm on the left belongs to my son Jabez,' 



172 The Motherhood of God 



said she, 'and the next one to my boy Zalim, and the 
next to my lad Jason, and the next is my boy Poti- 
phar's place, and — ' 

" * Hold on, sister,' said I. 'How did you man- 
age to raise such a fine lot of boys 'way off here in 
the woods?' 

" 'Wall, stranger,' she answered, 'I am a widdy 
woman, and all I had to raise 'em on was prayer and 
hickory, but I raised 'em powerful frequent.' " 

The' discipline of Providence is a good deal Hke 
that. If we yield ourselves to discipline, then the 
trials and hardships and struggles, and even the 
chastisement which God brings upon our sins and 
follies, develop in us the true gold of character. 
-Many of us looking back can see where we have 
been thwarted and rebuked and humbled, and yet 
it has worked out for our good. It was bitter at 
the time, but it was sweeter than honey in its re- 
sult. It humiliated us, but, true to the law of God 
in such things, humiliation was the forerunner of 
lifting up and exaltation. There is honor for the 
man who can stand being mortified and humbled and 
who has wisdom enough to learn thereby the lessons 
which God would teach him. 

But possibly some discouraged man is saying, 
"That 's all very well if the real gold is left in you ; 
but if you have frittered away your opportunities 
and your privileges, have chosen dross rather than 
gold, until your life is honeycombed with evil habits 
and your character is weakened by wrongdoing, 
what is there left for you then?" 



The Coin that Rings True 



173 



There is nothing left in your own strength. 
Thank God, everything is for you yet, if you will 
bring your failure to the God who is able out of de- 
feat to snatch victory. Bring your heart to the 
mercy-seat where Christ has promised to meet you, 
and he will turn you about, and transform your 
life, and give' it a different ring altogether. 

A commercial traveler had been living a worldly 
careless life. He was not a drunkard, yet he fre- 
quently took a glass with a customer to seal a sale. 
Sometimes he took his drink when neither customer 
nor sale was taken into the account. He did not 
count himself a gambler, yet he always carried a 
pack of cards in a certain corner of his grip. 
Finally, through a good wife's prayers and solicita- 
tions, he was converted. Then came the test of the 
first trip out. He knew that that trip would tell 
the tale whether he was to be a victorious Chris- 
tian or not. He knew that he would have to run 
the gauntlet all the way around, and that if he' was 
frank and straightforward in his witness for Christ 
he would have to stand a great deal that would be 
hard to bear. But he determined that the coin of 
his testimony for Christ should ring true on the 
counter of every merchant with whom he did busi- 
ness, and that he would take the consequences. 

When he had made up his mind to that he packed 

his grip anew. A good many things he had had 

along before he now left behind. The first town 

he reached knew that something had happened. 

When he opened his grip there was no flask of liquor, 
12 



174 



The Motherhood of God 



and in the corner where the well-worn deck of cards 
had always lain there was a small Bible. His religion 
had reached his grip. 

The first customer laughed. "Ha, ha ! Good - 
joke ! Capital i" roared he. The second customer 
whistled and looked quizzically at the drummer. 
The third customer said: "Why, my dear fellow, 
what 's up ? Have n't turned preacher, have you ?" 
But the' drummer met them all alike. With smiHng 
face, but with earnest, manly voice, he spoke it right 
out, "Boys, I Ve turned around !" The fourth 
customer was a Christian man. He looked the 
drummer in the eye without saying a word and 
pointed to the' Bible. The new convert said, slowly, 
but positively, "I mean it." The tears sprang to 
the merchant's eyes in a flash, and the two men 
gripped each other's hands with the warmth and 
tenderness of friends meeting in a strange land. 
Everybody found it out all along the road where 
he traveled. Every merchant and drummer he met 
respected and honored him because his earnest- 
ness and manliness rang true for Christ every time. 

That is the Avay to be a Christian. Throw your 
whole heart into it. Give your whole soul up to it. 
It is a great thing to be an open, frank, faithful 
friend of Jesus Christ — to ring true to him in secret 
as well as in public. Let us do this, and after we 
have passed through all the counting-rooms and 
exchange's of human trial we shall come at last to 
the final clearing-house of the judgment-seat, and 
in that supreme test, when men and angels shall 
witness it, our coin will be found to ring true. 



XX 



The Three Greatest Signal Lights in History 

"And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of 
righteousness, and of judgment." — John xvi, 8. 

Christ was going from his disciples. His life 
on e'arth was nearing its close. To comfort their 
hearts he tells them about the coming of the Com- 
forter, the Holy Spirit, who would comfort those 
who loved him and cheer their hearts on the way. 
Then he sets forth the influence and work of the 
Holy Spirit among men of the world generally. 

He declares that the Holy Spirit will hang out 
three great signal lights of warning and hope to 
mankind. The first one is a red light, bearing tes- 
timony to the fact of sin. It will call the world's 
attention to sin, especially to the sin of rejecting 
Jesus Christ. At first glance one is likely to say 
that that is not necessary, that the world is con- 
scious enough of sin already; and in a certain sense 
that is true. But the world lacks that keen conviction 
of sin which causes men and women to abhor it 
and loathe it and turn from it to forgiveness. Sin 
is the cause of all the sorrow and misery in the 
world, and yet the world is foreve'r trying to cure 
its sorrows, heal its miseries, and stanch its woes 

175 



176 



The Motherhood of God 



while it leaves the sin which causes them untouched. 
See the sorrow that is poured out upon the earth 
because of the sin of Hquor-selling and drunken- 
ness. Legislatures and governments go on building 
hospitals and insane asylums and prisons to take 
care of the blighted and debauched and ruined lives, 
but leave untouched the sin which causes this river 
of distress. Surely, what the w^orld needs more than 
anything else is to be convinced of sin. It seems 
strange that in spite of all our experience with sin 
we should have so little consciousness of the devilish 
character of it. 

It is the' work of the Holy Spirit to pierce the 
drugged conscience with a new conviction of sin 
and to arouse the soul to its danger. Men go on 
in their sins because they are unconscious of the 
danger by which their sins surround them. 

There is a story of a certain king who was never 
seen to laugh or smile, but in all places, among all 
persons, at all times, he was very pensive and sad. 
His queen, being much troubled at his melancholy, 
and being unable to discover the reason, requested 
a brother of his that he would ask him what was 
the cause of his continual sadness. He did so. The 
king put him of¥ till the next day for an answer, and, 
in the meantime, caused a deep pit to be made', com- 
manding his servants to fill it half full with fiery 
coals. He then caused an old, rotten board to be 
laid over the pit, and over the board, with the point 
downward, a two-edged sword was hung by a small, 
tender thread. Close by the pit a table was set, 
full of all manner of delicacies. His brother, com- 



The Three Greatest Signat Lights in History 177 

ing next day for an answer, was placed on the board, 
with four men with drawn swords about him. The best 
music that could be had was played before him, and 
the king called to him, saying: "Rejoice and be merry, 

0 my brother ! Eat, drink, and laugh ; for here is 
pleasant being." But he replied: ''O my lord king! 
How can I be merry, being in such danger on every 
side?" Then the king said: "Look how it is now 
with thee. So it is always with me; for if I look 
about me I see the great and dreadful Judge, to 
whom I must give an account of all my thoughts, 
words, and deeds, good or evil. If I look under me, 

1 see the endless torment of despair, wherein I shall 
be cast if I die in my sin. If I look behind me, I 
see all the' sins that ever I committed and the time 
which I have so unprofitably spent. If I look be- 
fore me, I see my death approaching every day nearer 
and nearer. If I look on my right hand, I see my 
conscience accusing me of all that I have done and 
left undone in this world. If I look on my left hand, 
I see those who cry out for vengeance against me 
because of the wrongs I have done them. Now, 
then, cease' to wonder why I can not rejoice at the 
world or anything in the world, but continue sad 
and heavy." 

And so it would be with every man if he could 
see the real guilt and horror of sin without a hope 
of forgiveness in Jesus Christ. 

Men close their eyes to their sins and the guilt 
of them, and try to absorb themselves in other 
things and forget about them ; but nothing could be 
more unwise, for one does not escape from sin that 



I7S 



The Motherhood of God 



wa3^ After all, the supreme sin is in refusing the 
Christ who comes to save us from all sin. No sin 
you have ever committed is so full of folly and guilt 
as the sin of rejecting Him who died to redeem you 
and who offers now to be your Savior. 

The next signal light which the Holy Spirit holds 
up for us is the white light of righteousness. This 
shows us the Ufe of Jesus without a spot of evil, with- 
out a stain of wrong. When a man says it is nec- 
essary to make compromises with the sins of the 
world, that it is impossible to live a good, pure life 
in this world, there is the' life of Jesus confronting 
him. For Christ lived in our body. He bore the 
infirmities of our flesh. He knew what poverty was. 
He knew" all the temptations that come to the poor 
man who has to work hard. He knew the' meaning 
of loneliness and hunger and thirst and false friends 
and cruel enemies — in fact, he was tempted in all 
points like as we are, yet without sin. He walked 
amid our common life, not holding himself aloof at 
all, and yet kept himself white and unspotted from 
the world. AVhat a comfort there is in the white- 
ness of the life of Jesus Christ! for the presence 
of God in his life which kept him pure and clean from 
sin he is ready to share with us. Christ has proved 
that the righteous life is possible. If a man will 
be true to God, then God will be true to him, and 
nothing can withstand him. The Holy Spirit comes 
to convince us that the righteous life is not only the 
possible, but the natural life for us to live. 

Hugh Latimer once' preached a sermon at court 
in the days of Henry VHI which much displeased 



The Three Greatest Signal Lights in History 179 

the king. The' irate monarch commanded that he 
should preach again the next Sunday and recant 
what he had said. So at the appointed time he came 
to preach, and prefaced his sermon with the follow- 
ing dialogue: "Hugh Latimer, dost thou know to 
whom thou art this day to speak? To the' high and 
mighty monarch, the king's most excellent majesty, 
Henry VHI, who can take away thy life if thou 
offend. Therefore take heed how thou speak a word 
that may displease him." Then, as if he were re- 
called to himself, he exclaimed again: "Hugh Lati- 
mer, dost thou know from whence thou comest, 
upon whose message thou art sent, and who it is 
that is present with thee and beholdeth all thy ways ? 
Even the great and mighty God, who is able to cast 
both body and soul into hell forever. Therefore 
look about thee, and be sure that thou deliver thy 
message faithfully." Then came the sermon, in 
which he rebuked the king's sins even more fiercely 
than before. 

The sermon being done, the court was full of 
expectation and excitement as to what would be 
the issue of the matter. After dinner the king 
called for Latimer, and, with a stern countenance, 
asked him how he durst be so bold as to preach 
after that manner. He answered that duty to God 
and his prince' had enforced him thereunto, and now 
he had discharged both conscience and duty in what 
he had spoken, and his life was in his majesty's 
hands. The awakened conscience of the king was 
for the time in supremacy, and he embraced Latimer, 
saying that he blessed God that he had a man in 



i8o 



The Motherhood of God 



his kingdom who dared to deal so plainly and faith- 
fully with him. 

We should all remember that our first concern 
is to stand right with God. It is as much our duty 
as it was the duty of Jesus Christ to please' God; 
and the Hfe of Christ in its purity and righteousness 
stands to-day to reprove us for our sins and to call 
our attention to the holy life it is possible for us 
to live through God's help. The righteousness of 
Jesus should inspire' in our hearts a longing to live 
the same pure life. Some one has well said that a 
man is what he thinks he can become as well as 
what he thinks God estimates him as being worth. 
If a man thinks meanly of himself and of his possi- 
bilities, then he will go on living a mean life. But 
if a man thinks bravely of his own powers, then 
he will use them ably for ends that are true and noble. 
The infinite power of God which reigns supreme 
in the life of Jesus is within our reach, and we have 
the assurance that if we will repent of our sins and 
accept the forgiveness of Christ we shall rejoice in 
that Divine strength in our attempt to live the' white 
life of righteousness. 

Then there is this other signal light which tells 
of judgment. The Holy Spirit calls us from our for- 
getfulness to see clearly the great fact that though 
sometimes justice may seem to be thwarted or de- 
layed, and there may seem to be no difference be- 
tween the success of the good man and that of the 
bad man, no difference between right and wrong, no 
difference between good and evil, yet this is only 



The Three Greatest Signal Lights in History i8i 

in seeming; for in the end there is righteous judg- 
ment. 

The reason which Admiral Cervera gave for not 
trying to escape from Santiago Harbor at night was 
that the powerful searchlights from the' American 
ships shone in the eyes of the men and made it im- 
possible to escape unseen or even to guide their 
own ships aright. If those' lights had been put out 
for a single hour, the Spanish admiral might have 
been able to escape. And it would not have been 
surprising if, in that long, wearisome waiting, some 
one had grown negHgent of his duty, and thinking 
there was no use in keeping up such vigilance for- 
ever, some night the Hght had been allowed to go 
out. Human searchHghts must rest as well as their 
keepers. 

But the Holy Spirit assures us that there is 
turned full upon the life of every one of us a search- 
light that never fails or falters, night or day, through 
all the years. Not a single word, action, or thought 
of our hearts escapes the scrutiny of that unceasing 
eye, and everything it sees is photographed and 
treasured up in the book of remembrance to con- 
front us in judgment. 

It is idle for us to suppose that we can hide any 
wrongdoing from the righteous judgment of God. 
There is an old proverb which says, ''Murder will 
out." The philosophy of that proverb is that there 
is something in sin, some tell-tale element in wrong- 
doing, that will expose itself. 

A police captain, walking from his home in 



I82 



The Motherhood of God 



Brooklyn, being on the way to his station-house, 
noticed a man coming out of a yard-gate. He was 
carrying a bundle, but looked like an ordinary citi- 
zen going to his work. As the captain passed, the' 
man halted a moment, resting his hand on the stone 
pillar at the foot of the stoop. The captain looked 
him over and noticed that he was well dressed; but 
he noticed also a suspicious circumstance — that the 
house was shut up as if the family were away. "What 
have you in the bundle?" the captain asked in a 
tone of polite interest. "Only some woman's 
clothes," was the reply. "They belong to my, sister. 
She lives here, but she is out of town, and I am 
sending these things to her." This explanation 
seemed reasonable, but the' captain asked, to make 
sure, "Nothing but women's clothes?" The man 
replied, coolly, "No, nothing else." But at that 
moment, as the captain was resuming his walk, a 
soft, mellow chime sounded from the bundle, betray- 
ing the presence of a clock. "Ah," said the captain, 
"women's clothes do not make that noise. You will 
have to come with me." Very unwillingly the man 
compHed, and at the' station-house the bundle was 
opened, revealing a clock and a quantity of valuable 
silver. Some skeleton keys and other burglar's tools 
completed the proof that the man was a burglar, 
and that the goods in his possession were stolen. 
That incident was illustrative of the Scripture which 
says, "The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the 
beam out of the timber shall answer it." 

I come' to you with these three great signal lights ; 
and I pray God that the Holy Spirit may flash upon 



The Three Greatest Signal Lights in History 183 

every guilty conscience here a keen sense of the re- 
ality and the danger of sin, and may further impress 
upon the soul, so that it can not be shaken off, the 
thought that sin must be judged. The only escape 
from sin is in righteousness, and the power is not 
in us in our own strength to free ourselves from 
sin and enter into righteousness. 

It is reported of an ancient prince that a neighbor- 
ing king used to pick quarrels with him by making 
impossible demands, and threatening war and ruin 
if these demands were not fulfilled. Among other 
things, he charged him to drink up the sea, which 
a counselor, hearing, advised him to undertake. The 
prince replied, "How is it possible to be accom- 
plished?" The sage answered, "Let him first stop 
up all the rivers that run into the sea, which are no 
part of the bargain, and then you shall perform it." 

Much more impossible it is for us to consume 
and dry up all the ocean of sin in us, so long as evil 
appetite's and passions, like so many rivers, are feed- 
ing it. But Jesus Christ has power on earth to for- 
give sin. He can cleanse us from all sin at the 
fountain-head. He will not only forgive us the sins 
that are past, and take away the sting of remorse 
because' of them, but he will inspire in us a new pur- 
pose, a new desire, so that the new life of righteous- 
ness shall fill our thoughts, our plans, and our am- 
bitions. 



XXI 



Laying Hold of the Life-Line 

**Lay hold on eternal life." — i Timothy vi, 12. 

Paui. was getting to be an old man, and was be- 
ginning to feel the vanity and brevity of this earthly 
life. He knows now, as he did not in his youth, 
how transitory are all the sources of happiness in this 
short and swiftly changing panorama of life on the 
earth. Writing to this young man, who is very dear 
to him, he urges him to make no mistake, but to 
"lay hold on eternal life." No matter how good 
a hold he might get on this vv^orld, his trembling 
fingers must soon loose their grasp upon it; and 
if he is to be permanently happy, he must lay hold 
upon something that will not fail him, and that he 
will not be compelled to relinquish in passing away 
from this world. It is a precious thing that in the 
midst of all these changing scenes of earth there is 
this great life-line of eternal hope upon which we 
may lay hold, knowing that it will not break and will 
never fail us. Everything else will fail, but this will 
hold fast. 

A little while ago a man who had been living in 
Kansas City, and who for twenty-five years had been 
an outspoken infidel, died, leaving a curious will. 

184 



Laying Hold of the Life-Line 185 



In it his fortune of a hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars, with the exception of only four thousand 
dollars, was given to reHgious institutions and chari- 
table organizations under religious control. No ex- 
planation was made, but the fact was surely very 
significant. 

One' of the most brilliant infidels in this country — 
a man who did not boast of his infidelity or use it 
for money-making — once wrote a series of anony- 
mous articles asserting his views. He told Mr. Lynn 
Roby Meekins, who relates the story, that one morn- 
ing he had a caller, a stranger. The man came to 
his house, introduced himself, and with touching fer- 
vor thanked him again and again for making him 
see the light. He had found out who was the author 
of the articles. The infidel said he was greatly non- 
plussed, but replied as best he could that he was 
glad to have been of service to him. The stranger 
had been a worker in his Church, and was, as was 
discovered later, a man of influence and usefulness 
in the community. His excessive gratitude was em- 
barrassing, and it reached a climax when he said, 
with increasing intensity, *'Sir, you have con- 
verted me." 

"Now," said the writer of the articles, "I have 
been wondering ever since what I converted him to." 

He had converted him to nothing. He had left 
the man without anything at all to hold on to. When 
the Kansas City infidel with his fortune looked 
around, he found that infidelity did not have a single 
organization by which money could be' used for the 
alleviation of suffering, for the physical salvation of 



The Motherhood of God 



the weak, or for the material improvement of man- 
kind. He found that Christianity was the only 
agency which was doing the work of organized kind- 
ness and goodness in the world, and that could be' 
trusted with the carrying out of his better purposes. 
The Christian Churches have done about all that 
is of any benefit in the world. And so this infidel, 
finding that infidelity had done nothing, had nothing 
to do anything with, turned his dollars over to the 
Christian Church he had been fighting, that the 
money might do some good after he was gone. 

The aged Christian never has to look around for 
something substantial and reliable as he draws near 
the end of life. He who has laid hold upon eternal 
life finds that his grasp becomes firmer as he nears 
the end, and that He on whom he has believed is 
able to keep him until the day of victory. 

The figure used in the text is a very strong and 
vigorous one. It indicates that we should take a 
grasp on eternal life as earnest and determined as 
the hold a drowning sailor takes upon a life-line that 
the' rescuers throw to him when he is ready to per- 
ish. With what a stern grip a man will lay hold on 
a line on such an occasion ! He does not play with 
it ; he gives it no half-hearted clasp, but clutches it 
with a grip that means life or death. Many a man 
has been pulled in unconscious, but his grip on the 
line was so set that it could not be loosened. It is 
something like that that Paul means when he talks 
about laying hold on eternal life. 

The first light-house that stood on Minot's Ledge 
was built on huge iron pillars. The mighty waves 



Laying Hold of the Life-Line 



187 



came between it and the rock and lifted it away, 
dashing it to pieces Hke an eggshell. The builders 
now leveled the ledge, and brought hardest granite, 
and dovetailed and riveted every course to the rock 
below, till nothing could shake the tower which did 
not shake the rock. And there it stands through all 
the storms, never failing to send forth its light. 
There is no chance' for the waves to get between it 
and the bed-rock on which it stands. Our only 
safety lies in thus laying hold of Jesus Christ. Eter- 
nal life is in him. If we lay hold of Christ, riveting 
ourselves to him with our love and devotion, noth- 
ing can shake us loose from him. 

Many make the mistake of laying hold on their 
own pride, and trust in their own power of will rather 
than in laying hold on Christ; but when the great 
storm comes they are' without any sure anchorage. 

Some months ago a man who had been living 
alone, taking care of a farmhouse on Long Island, 
was found dead in his bed. During a severe storm 
the neighbors noticed that there we're no signs of 
his presence about the place, and it was supposed 
that the storm had caused him to go to the city. But 
when the brighter weather set in and he did not ap- 
pear, an acquaintance forced the way into the house 
and found the dead body. A strange feature of 
the case was that there' was a belt around the dead 
man's body which was secured by a strong cord 
to the post of the bed, and ropes were attached to 
his ankles, which were also fastened to the posts. 
It was thought at first that a murder had been com- 
mitted ; but further examination showed that the man 



i88 



The Motherhood of God 



had tied the ropes himself. The doctors suppose 
that he had become very ill and had been delirious, 
but in one' of his lucid intervals had realized his con- 
dition, and fearing that if he again lost his senses 
he might wander out into the storm and be frozen 
to death, he had tied himself to the bed, so that he 
could not go outside the room. It was a pathetic 
thing thus to deprive himself of the power to run 
into harm. There would have been no need for 
it if some friend had been at hand who could have 
been trusted to restrain him. 

Many men and women who are sufferers from 
sinful habits and passions are conscious that they 
are in danger of disaster and ruin unless they are 
restrained in the hour of temptation. There is only 
one sure refuge, and that is to lay hold upon Him 
who is able to keep you from falling. To lay hold 
on Christ and eternal life' means a letting loose of 
our sins and a breaking of the bondage of evil habit. 
In Isaiah God calls upon those who would lay hold 
upon righteousness and forgiveness to "loose the 
bands of wickedness." And we' are taught in the New 
Testament that "if the Son therefore shall make you 
free, ye shall be free indeed." 

The railways of India had lately a curious prob- 
lem to decide. It was whether a man who applied 
for passage from the far North to a Southern shrine 
should be' accepted at passenger rates or charged as 
freight. He had heavy iron bands upon his wrists, 
ankles, and neck; heavy iron girdles about his chest 
and loins ; heavy iron chains swung in festoons across 
his chest and back ; heavy iron chains wound around 



Laying Hold of the Life-Line 1S9 

each limb, and, finally, an iron cable fastened to his 
waistband and terminating in a heavy iron ring, 
while he carried an immense iron pin and a hammer 
with which to drive it into the ground when he chose 
to stake himself out for the night. It was estimated 
that he carried upon his person no less than two 
hundred pounds of the metal, and the conclusion 
of the railroad authorities was that he must pay both 
for passage and for freightage on his chains. It 
proved that he was a pilgrim upon his journey to 
expiate his sins, and finding it would be impossible 
to reach on foot the shrine of his chosen intercessor 
with his articles of penance on, he wished to go near 
enough by rail to make the balance of his journey 
practicable. Accoutered as he was, he presented a 
graphic picture of the conscience burdened by its 
sense of sin. He was seeking in the pains of his 
body to atone for the sins of his soul. His burdened 
frame was but a picture of his heavily-weighted 
heart. If that man could have found Jesus Christ 
and laid hold on him, he could have let loose from 
all those burdening chains. 

Are there not some who hear me who know the 
burdens and the chains of sin, and who need as truly 
as did this poor heathen to find the Christ who can 
free them from their sins? The tenderness of God 
in forgiveness, and the simplicity and completeness 
of it is nowhere more clearly stated than in the Old 
Testament statement, "I have blotted out, as a thick 
cloud, thy transgressions." 

A boy ran to his mother one day after he had 
read that verse, and said: "Mother, what does God 
13 



I90 



The Motherhood of God 



mean when he says he blots out my sins? What is 
he going to do with them? I can't see how God 
can really blot them out and put them away. What 
does it mean — blot out?" 

The wise mother said to the boy, "Did n't I see 
you yesterday writing on your slate?" 

"Yes," he said. 

"Well, fetch it to me." 

He brought the slate. 

Holding it in front of him, the mother said, 
"Where is what you wrote?" 

"O," he said, "I rubbed it out." 

"Well, where is it?" 

"Why, mother, I do n't know." 

"But how could you put it away if it was really 
there?" 

"O mother, I do n't know. I know it was there, 
and it is gone." 

"Well," she said, "that is what God means when 
he says, have blotted out thy transgressions.' " 

And so God will blot out your transgressions, 
dark and black and heavy though they are, if you 
come to him in repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. 
And though you may not know just how it was done, 
your sorrows will be gone, your rebuking conscience 
will have peace', and God will have freed you from 
your chains of evil habit. 

There is another thought about this laying hold 
of eternal life which ought to have great interest 
to some of you, and that is, that your hold of salva- 
tion may cause many others, and some that are very 
dear to you, to be saved. 



Laying Hold of the Life-Line 191 

A gentleman writing in The Advance tells of a 
3^oung woman who had been brought up in a Chris- 
tian home, who went away in her young woman- 
hood, and after a time' married into a family opposed 
to Christianity, and for years never attended pub- 
lic service. But children came, and the mother's 
heart demanded for her boys the influence's of Church 
and Sunday-school that had surrounded her own 
young life. A Sunday-school Convention furnished 
the first occasion for a break in the long absence from 
the house of God. Later came a series of revival- 
meetings, and the very first night the young mother 
laid hold upon Christ, and took her stand and main- 
tained it thereafter, not without mild opposition on 
the part of her husband, who thought her good 
enough without it. 

But as the days went on she felt that her life 
was not complete. She beUeved she ought to have 
family worship. So she talked with her husband, 
and told him that she must do it, but that he need 
not feel that he' must go out. However, he went, 
and she read and prayed with the children. Then 
the boys thought that if papa didn't stay they 
need n't, and they went out, too. So sometimes she' 
had all three children, and sometimes she had family 
worship alone. But she had faith to believe that 
time would bring all things right. And, sure' 
enough, in a week or so her husband began to stay 
in, and in the third week of the meetings he was 
converted. 

Then they talked over the family worship again, 
and decided that she should read and he pray. They 



192 



The Moiherhood of God 



did that way for awhile, but she was n't satisfied : 
she wanted each to have some part in it. So they 
talked it over again. It didn't seem best that all 
should pray every time, and they finally settled it 
that they should take turns in praying, and that on 
Sunday they would have prayer all around. And 
that is the' way they have done ever since. The three 
sons are young men now, and are all strong Chris- 
tians and workers in the Church. 

So it came to pass that when that young mother 
laid hold upon Jesus Christ, she tied the whole fam- 
ily up to eternal life, and not only one, but five in 
her own household have had their lives blessed and 
glorified through her conversion. 

The blessed thing about all these incidents of 
transformed lives is that God is no respecter of 
persons, and that his call to just such mercy and love 
comes to every one who hears me now. And in 
perfect confidence of God's willingness to save, I 
call upon every one who is not a Christian already 
to "lay hold on eternal life." It will not be indiffer- 
ence that you lay hold upon, but you will find heav- 
enly hands of mercy coming out to meet yours. 
When God sent the angels to lead Lot out of Sodom, 
the record says that while he tarried and hesitated 
to go, the' messengers laid hold on his hand to lead 
him, and that this was to show God's mercy. God's 
mercy is as great now, and if we could only see with 
clearer eyes we would perceive many an angelic 
messenger laying caressing hands on some that are 
here and seeking to lead them out of their Sodom of 
indifference and sin up into the mountains of safety. 



XXII 



The Personal Vision of Christ 

''And sitting down they watched him there. ' — Matthew xxvii, 36. 

Tpiat is a very striking statement, and suggests 
a wonderful picture'. Think of the different people 
who were in that group of watchers about the cross 
of Jesus, and how different were the visions they 
had of the central figure hanging there. 

There were the soldiers — cruel, brutal men in 
that day — and they saw in Christ only a criminal 
whom it was their duty to watch until he was dead. 

In vivid contrast to them were the faithful women 
who had been Christ's friends and disciples, and 
whose loyal love did not shrink from him in the 
time of his trial and suffering. They are nearest 
of all to the foot of the cross. They see in him 
the noblest friend and benefactor they have ever 
known, and their hearts are bre'aking with tender 
sorrow. 

The mother of Jesus is among these, and she has 
a vision of him different from any one else'. It is a 
mother's look she gives. She sees her son. She 
remembers when he was a little, new-born babe' in 
her arms yonder in the stable in Bethlehem. She 
remembers how close she held him to her breast on 

193 



194 The Motherhood of God 



the journey down into Egypt to escape the soldiers 
of Herod, who would have taken his life. She recalls 
the happy days in Nazareth when he' played with the 
shavings on the floor of the carpenter's shop. All 
the wonderful story of his three and thirty years 
come back to her now. But I imagine that one thing 
above all else fills her heart as she looks at the cross 
and sees the pain written on his face. It is that her 
boy is sufifering and she can not help him ; and only 
a mother can know what anguish that must have 
been. 

The disciples, looking from a distance, saw in 
Christ blighted hopes. They were fond of him, they 
had been devoted to him, but they had thought he 
was to be an earthly king, and they could not under- 
stand this lamentable change in his fortunes; and 
so they watched the dying Savior with sad per- 
plexity. 

On either side of Jesus was a malefactor con- 
demned to death for his crimes. One of these men 
judged Christ out of his own wicked heart, and 
saw in him, as in himself, only a hardened criminal 
who deserved his fate, and with pecuHar malicious- 
ness joined with the rabble to make the last hours 
of Jesus, if possible, more bitter still. 

The other thief caught some glimpse of the true 
mission of Jesus. It seems wonderful to us that 
he should, but we do not know what opportunities 
the man may have had. He may have witnessed 
some miracle of Christ's that convinced him that 
Jesus was what he claimed to be, the Messiah ; or, 
what is more likely, the gentleness, the patience, 



The Personal Vision of Chrisi 



195 



and, above all, the forgiving spirit of Jesus during 
the agony on the cross may have convinced this 
wicked man that there' was something in him above 
and beyond all human power. As he heard Christ 
pray amid the shouting of the rabble, ''Father, for- 
give them; for they know not what they do," his 
heart gathered hope that here was a Divine and ever- 
living King, whom death would not be able to hold, 
and who would have power to forgive his sins and 
save him in heaven. And so, forgetting his anguish 
of body in the deeper anxiety for his soul, he cried 
out, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into 
thy kingdom." And Jesus said unto him, ''Verily 
I say unto thee. To-day shalt thou be with me in 
Paradise." 

The Pharisee's, including the priests themselves, 
steeped in their own hollow formalism, having lost 
the spirit of their religion long ago in their cold and 
indifferent worship, saw in Christ only a fraud, and 
looked on his sufferings with a sneer, believing him 
to be an impostor. 

Angels were brooding over that scene, and they 
saw in Jesus a love so wonderful that they could not 
understand it. They had known Christ in heaven 
when he was clothed upon with all the glory of the 
heavenly world. They had seen him put aside the 
wealth of the skies, where the poorest inhabitant is 
richer than the greatest millionaire of earth, and 
they had watched over him as he came down and 
became poor even on the earth. They had followed 
his way; they had comforted him after the tempta- 
tion in the wilderness ; they soothed his sorrows in 



196 The Motherhood of God 



the Garden of Gethsemane; and now, invisible to 
the other watchers, but just as real, they watch him 
there and wonder at the depths of love that could 
bring Christ to the cross to die for sinners. 

Devils were there, too, like the dark, black- 
winged bats that fly in the night ; and these spirits of 
evil saw in Christ the promised seed of Eve that was 
to bruise the serpent's head ; and they were filled 
with dismay. They, too, had met Christ before. 
In the country of the Gadarenes they had held a man 
in bondage so that he dwelt in the tombs and was 
feared and hated of all, until Jesus came and set 
him free and made a noble, glorious man of him. 
They also wondered at the' love that dared to die to 
save sinners. 

The Heavenly Father watched that cross, and 
he saw in Jesus perfect obedience in giving himself 
to save the lost ; and the heart of Heaven throbbed 
with perfect love. 

And the multitude of passers-by — what did they 
see in Christ? Alas, they saw nothing — nothing but 
a man who had gotten himself into trouble by claim- 
ing to be better than his fellows. With them it was 
only an hour's sensation. They went to the cruci- 
fixion as men go to a circus. It was the talk of an 
afternoon and a night, and to-morrow forgotten. 
They looked on the cross of Christ with indiflference. 

Now, these groups make up the types of the e3^es 
that watched Jesus on the cross. AA'hich one of 
them represents you? Alas, I fear that there are 
many of you who are like that great company which 
was in the majority at the time of the crucifixion, 



The Personal Vision of Christ 



197 



who saw the death of Jesus with indifference. You 
have become hardened to the story of Christ's suf- 
ferings and death for you. 

An electrician in New Orleans has recently called 
attention to the fact that the bodies of men employed 
in and around electrical plants become, to a large 
degree, immune to shocks from live wires. He em- 
ploys men who receive shocks which would kill any 
ordinary man ; yet they apparently suffer Httle from 
them. One incident he mentions in illustration. 
It was a case in which two men came in contact ac- 
cidentally with a live wire, and both received, at the' 
same time, precisely the same current. One of them 
was a helper around a dynamo, and had met with 
accidents of the' same kind, though not so serious, 
before. He was knocked down and stunned by the 
shock, but was up again and about his work in two 
minutes, and was apparently none the worse. The 
other, who was a larger and much stronger man, 
but a stranger to electrical work, was half an hour 
in recovering consciousness, and was ill in bed after- 
wards for several days. Evidently repeated shocks 
have a tendency to increase the power of resistance, 
and it is well for the men who have much to do 
with electricity that it is so. 

But in the spiritual world, where the same tend- 
ency is observed, the result is very sad indeed. And 
some of you who hear me are illustrations of the 
fact that if one' has heard the gospel plainly and hon- 
estly preached until the Word has been used by 
the Spirit of God to rouse the conscience and stir 
the emotion so that the heart is impelled to accept 



198 



The Motherhood of God 



Christ as a Savior, and the impulse is disregarded, 
and the soul stubbornly refuses to obey the Divine 
call, the heart hardens until the same message does 
not have the same effect again. Solomon was wise' 
about this when he said, "He, that being often re- 
proved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be de- 
stroyed, and that without remedy." God forbid that 
that should be the end, the tragic and sorrowful 
end, of the hardening-process that has been going 
on in your heart ! But if it is not to be so there 
must be an arousing of your will to break down the 
lethargy and indifference that has kept you from act- 
ing on hearing the message of God's Word. 

A man in a New York hospital is tmdergoing 
the process of ossification, by which his flesh is turn- 
ing to bone. It is an incurable malady, and in a 
short time will result in death. His case is regarded 
by physicians with wonder and curiosity, and by the' 
general public with a feeling akin to horror and pity. 
In the physical domain it is regarded as a very un- 
usual phenomenon; but in spiritual experience it is 
sadly common. And I doubt not that some of you 
could bear testimony that once you were sensitive 
to every breath of influence intended to move you 
to reverence and worship, but now you have become 
indifferent and unfeeling, and the things that once 
moved you toward righteousness, that aroused your 
gratitude toward God, that awakened the feeling 
of responsibility in your heart, move you no more. 
Your heart is getting hard and unnatural. If, drawn 
by the Spirit of God, you would break down your 
stubbornness and indifference, and bring a broken 



The Personal Vision of Christ 



199 



and contrite heart to the mercy-seat, and gaze anew 
at the cross of Jesus, I am sure' what you would 
see there would move you to action. 

Some people suppose' they need some special 
kind of faith before they can become Christians ; but 
that is a great mistake. The faith that you need 
is that which will cause you to obey Christ. Mr. 
Moody puts it this way : Suppose I meet a man whom 
I have' seen, night after night, begging, and I say 
to him, ''Hello, beggar; is that you?" 

*'Do n't call me a beggar. I am no longer a 
beggar." 

"Are you not the man who has been begging 
here every night?" 
"Yes." 

"Where did you get your good clothe's? How is 
it you are not a beggar?" 

"No, I am not a beggar ; I am worth a thousand 
dollars." 

"How is that?" 

"Well, sir, last night I was here begging, and a 
man came' along and put a check for one thousand 
dollars in my hand." 

"How did you know it was good?" 

"I took it to the bank this morning, and they 
gave me gold for it." 

"Did you really get it in that way?" 

"Ye's." 

"How did you know it was the right kind of hand- 
writing?" 

"Well," says the beggar, "what do I care about 
the handwriting? I have got the money." 



200 



The Motherhood of God 



So faith is the hand that reaches out and takes 
forgiveness. Any faith that brings you to Christ 
as your Savior is the right kind of faith, and instead 
of looking at your faitli look to Christ. The poor 
thief on the' cross did not know anything about the 
different theories concerning faith. It was the Christ 
who gave him hope. He had nothing worth present- 
ing in himself, and he knew nothing about the the- 
ory of salvation, but he saw something in the face 
of Jesus Christ that made him believe in him ; and 
at once he made his appeal and was forgiven. See 
if you have the right kind of Christ — a Christ that 
is able and willing to give you victory over sin. 

I wish I knew what to say to arouse some of 
you from your lethargy. You have heard many ser- 
mons where the preacher has faithfully sought to 
point you to Christ as your Savior, and they do not 
seem to have done you much good ; you still remain 
away from him. If you die as you are living now, 
you will be lost. If death were suddenly to meet 
you to-night, you would die without hope. I can 
not bear to have you go away in that condition. I 
have preached to some of you many times, and I 
wonder if it is my fault if I have failed in any way 
to make the message plain and clear and tender and 
loving to you. ]\Iay God help me to put the right 
view, the true picture of Jesus Christ who died to 
redeem you, before your eyes ! 

I fear that some of you are getting farther away 
every year. There was a time when you had no 
doubt that some day before' long you would come to 
Christ and seek salvation; but you think less of it 



The Personal Vision of Chrisi 



20 1 



now than you used to think. You are beginning 
to wonder now whether you ever will be a Christian 
or not. Heaven was once your ideal, and you did not 
dream that you could miss it ; but you do n't count 
on it so surely now as you did then. 

When Nansen, the Arctic explorer, attended the 
Geographical Congress in Berlin recently, he was 
asked his opinion as to the prospects of success of 
the present polar expedition and those planned ; and 
he said, in substance, that he did not intend to ven- 
ture into the Arctic again, and has evidently lost 
hope that the north pole will ever be reached. How 
different he used to talk in those days before he 
made his great venture in the North ! 

But there are many who have come to the same 
conclusion about reaching heaven at last. O I pray 
you, in God's name, do not let this great hope' of 
your immortality be smothered out by the worldH- 
ness and sin which surround you. You can not at- 
tain it in your own strength, but I call you to look 
upon the crucified Christ, who is now more than the 
crucified Christ — the risen and glorified Savior — who 
''is able also to save them to the uttermost that 
come unto God by him." 



XXIII 

My Neighbor's Duty and My Own 

"Lord, and what shall this man do?" — ^John xxi, 21. 
** Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" — Acts ix, 6. 
*'I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do."— 
John xvii, 4. 

Tb.^ first sentence of our text is a part of the last 
recorded dialogue which Jesus had with Peter. It 
has a very picturesque background. It occurred 
on the morning after a group of the disciples had 
fished all night and caught nothing. At daybreak 
they discovered Jesus on the' shore of the lake, and 
Peter swam ashore ahead of the rest, that he might 
have a first and private conversation with him. Jesus 
cooked the breakfast for them himself, and after they 
had eaten together, he had a heart-searching talk with 
Peter. **Simon, son of Jonas," he inquires, "lovest 
thou me more than these?" And Peter answers, 
"Yea, Lord ; thou knowest that I love thee." Upon 
which he replies, ''Feed my lambs." And he makes 
the same inquiry again, until Peter's heart is grieved, 
and he exclaims, *Xord, thou knowest all things ; 
thou knowest that I love thee." Then Jesus makes 
known to him that he shall continue to live to be an 
old man, and shall at last die a martyr, being cruci- 
fied for his faith in him. And immediately after- 

202 



My Neighbor's Duty and My Own 203 

wards the Savior says to him, "Follow me." Then 
Peter, turning about, saw John, and inquired of 
Jesus, "Lord, and what shall this man do?" 

Some people have thought that this was an en- 
vious, jealous sort of question which Peter put to 
Christ, as though he had said, "Is John always to 
have the easy place, and I the hard one? Is John 
to escape the struggle and the hardship and the 
martyrdom, while I am to walk the thorny path to- 
wards the cross?" But I think that is a slander on 
Peter. Peter had his faults, but I fail to discover 
among them the narrow meanness of envy and jeal- 
ousy. I prefer rather to beHeve that Peter's question 
arose spontaneously out of his friendly interest in 
John. His own path had just been marked out to 
him — but what about his chum, the' closest friend 
he had in the world? What is to happen to him? 
And so, full of inquisitiveness, of curiosity, which 
was a strong characteristic of Peter's nature, he in- 
quires, "What shall this man do?" 

The direct refusal of Jesus to tell him, and the 
clear rebuke of his words, ought to teach us, as well 
as Peter, the lesson of the individuality of our lives, 
and that while it is our privilege and our duty to be 
helpful and to bless our friends and neighbors, there 
is an individual and personal destiny for each one' of 
them, into which, though we love them better than 
our own lives, we can not enter. Christ threw Peter 
back on his own personal duty, "What is that to 
thee?" Asking perplexing questions about John was 
not Peter's supreme duty. Christ recalls Peter to 
his own great mission by saying, "Follow thou me." 



204 The Motherhood of God 



This brings us to the second part of the text, 
which has to do with our individual duty. It, also, 
has a most interesting background. Paul was on the 
way to Damascus with authority to arrest and im- 
prison Christians wherever he found them, and he 
was angry and full of wrath against Christ and his 
disciples. As he journeyed on in this evil spirit, 
''Suddenly there shined round about him a light from 
heaven : and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice 
saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou 
me? And he said. Who art thou, Lord? And the 
Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest : it is 
hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he 
trembling and astonished said. Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do?" 

That must ever be the cry of every earnest soul. 
The men and women who have accomplished what- 
ever is worth while in the world, have been those 
who have had aroused within their souls this deep 
cry, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" 

The question suggests the positive nature of all 
true life. It is not a world for dreaming only, but 
for doing. Dreaming is blessed if it be crystallized 
into doing. Dreaming is glorious if it be the spongy, 
spring}^ soil of the mountain plateau out of which the 
brook gurgles, issuing on its courageous course to 
the sea. We should teach this positive life to men 
from childhood up. Gladstone said a great thing 
when he uttered this terse sentence, ''It is a great 
work to reform ; but it is a greater work to form." 
A positive life of goodness from youth on, that is the 
life for lack of which in abundance the world halts 



My Neighho/s Duty and My Own 205 



in its advance. It is what we do that counts. We 
hear sometimes at funerals, "Only remembered by 
what I have done," and among the Swedes there is a 
poet that sings : 

"It matters little where I was born, 

Or if my parents were rich or poor ; 
Whether they shrank from the cold world's scorn 

Or walked in the pride of wealth secure ; 
But whether I live an honest man, 

And hold my integrity firm in my clutch, 
I tell you, my brother, as plain as I can. 
It matters much ! 

It matters little how long I stay 

In a world of sorrow, sin, and care ; 
Whether in youth I am called away, 

Or live till my bones and pate are bare ; 
But whether I do the best I can 

To soften the weight of adversity's touch 
On the faded cheek of my fellow-man, 
It matters much ! 

It matters little where be my grave, 

Or on the land or on the sea ; 
By purling brook or 'neath stormy wave, 

It matters little or naught to me ; 
But whether the Angel of Death comes down 

And marks my brow with his loving touch, 
As one that shall wear the victor's crown. 
It matters much !" 

Here is a suggestion, also, of the fact that a man's 
salvation is, under God, within his own reach. In 
the highest sense' each of us is the architect of his 
own fortune. He may turn over a new leaf, though 
he has long gone wrong. Though he has been in- 
different to God's purpose for him, he mav awake as 
14 



2o6 



The Motherhood of God 



a drunken man out of a slumber, and seeing a new 
vision of God's thought concerning him, rise up at 
the call of conscience and duty, and go forth and live 
a life worthy of the vSon of God. 

Dr. John Clifford, the English preacher, has re- 
cently spoken in strong and earnest rebuke of the' 
novelists who exploit that hopeless pessimism which 
teaches that we are the children of chance, and are 
often held in the grip of heartless chains which we 
have no power to break. He declares that it is not 
true. If it were, there might be some excuse for 
those who preach such tidings of great sadness. 
"Sadness?" says one noveHst. "My books are full of 
it. The world is full of it. Show me the master- 
pieces of art, literature, or music, and I shall show 
you creations palpitating with sadness." No doubt ; 
but the world does not "sorrow without hope." It 
has tragedy, and the artist who penetrates to the 
heart of life will represent it ; but if he is a true artist 
he will paint the figure of "Love among the Ruins." 
He will see the fierceness of life, but also its tender- 
ness, its helpful love, its integrity and worth. He' will 
sketch its wild revolts, its angry rebellions, but also 
the love that redeems and that, even if it fails, still 
toils to make "all things new." 

The greatest souls do not whine and rebel against 
this world ; they have faith in God, they walk in fel- 
lowship with Jesus Christ, and they work together 
with God to cure earth's sins and sorrows. There are 
islands of blessing in the oceans of misery, and men 
may sail to them and land on them if they will. 
"God 's in his heaven," and if not to-day, yet to- 



My Neighbor's Duty and My Chun 207 

morrow, or the day after, all will be right with the 
world. And all may be right with your world. No 
one here is in such a slough of despond, no one' here 
is so handcuf¥ed with "bonds of bitterness," but Jesus 
Christ has died to make you free. And this very hour, 
if you will cease to ''kick against the pricks," you may 
rise up into the new life' of freedom and hope. 

A bright writer commenting on Markham's poem, ^ 
"The Man with the Hoe," makes this striking re- 
mark : ''God sent man out of Eden's bowers with a 
hope and a hoe. And each was a blessing, the im- 
portance' of which the world has not yet recognized. 
The hope meant Christ. The hoe meant work." 

That is the gospel I bring you to-night. Hope 
and work. Nothing can stand in your way if you are 
sick of sin, and want to be' a good man or a good 
woman. Act at once on the impulse that comes to 
you, and turn to Christ with Paul's question, "Lord, 
what wilt thou have me to do ?" 

Mr. Moody tells a beautiful story of the conclu- 
sion of the war between the North and the South. 
A number of the Southern soldiers had become sepa- 
rated from the army, and had gone over into the 
Northern lines. They had wandered about for a long 
time in the woods, thinking that at any time they 
might fall in with some squadron of Northern sol- 
diers, and be arrested and taken to prison. They 
were starving to death, when a Southern ofhcer, rid- 
ing past, discovered them, and, noticing their con- 
dition, asked them what they were doing, and they 
replied that they were afraid for their lives. "Ah !" 
he said, "go to the nearest town, whether it be North 



208 



The Motherhood of God 



or South it does not matter. Peace has been pro- 
claimed, and all are brothers again." They were 
free, but did not know it. So Christ made' your free- 
dom, your hope, your victory, possible when he died 
in your stead. We are told that the great song we 
shall sing in heaven at last will be, "Unto him that 
loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own 
blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God 
and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for 
ever and ever." 

I would we might ask ourselves this serious ques- 
tion, ''What am I doing with the work God has given 
me to do ?" Jesus was able to say as he drew near 
the end, "1 have finished the work which thou gavest 
me to do." We can not throw our work off upon 
somebody else. Every man and woman among us 
must stand or fall on their own work. Compromises 
in religious matters always prove a failure, as it 
turned out in the case of David Harum, who left 
Polly to do most of the churchgoing for the family. 
When Polly worried at him about it, he finally com- 
promised by agreeing to go to church regularly on 
Thanksgiving. When asked if he kept his promise, 
he replied, ''Wa'al, sir, fer the next five years a' never 
missed attendin' church on Thanksgivin' but fovn^ 
times." That is about the way religion by proxy 
works. Some men try to console themselves with the 
thought that because they had a noble Christian 
father and a saintly mother, and were brought up in 
a Christian home, and have been so hedged about by 
Christian influences that they have always paid a 
certain respect and reverence to religion, they can 



My Neighbor's Duty and My Oivn 209 



not be going very far wrong. A man may have all 
that and yet fail, utterly fail, of doing his duty, and 
lose himself at last. 

In Scotland a certain chain bridge was famous 
for its massive strength. A French engineer who 
saw it built a similar bridge over the river Seine. It 
was Hghter than the one in Scotland. When its gates 
were opened to the pubHc it began ominously to sway 
to and fro beneath their tread, and presently gave 
way. The trouble with this bridge was that the archi- 
tect had omitted the middle' bolt. The middle bolt of 
the fabric of human character is submission to God, 
the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ. Are 
you doing your duty? Are you pleasing God? Is 
Christ your Savior walking with you in fellowship 
because of your obedience and submission to him? 
If that is so, then the' middle bolt of character is 
yours, and your bridge of life will bear its burdens. 
But if that is not so, nothing else can take its place, 
and when the great strain comes all the fair fabric 
of your life will fall into a broken and useless heap. 
God help me to speak to your conscience to-night, 
to speak to your inner self, to awaken the slumbering 
manhood and womanhood there, that you may rise 
up to cry with trembling earnestness, "Lord, what 
wilt thou have me to do?" 



XXIV 



The King's Jewels 

"And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day 
when I make up my jewels." — Malachi ill, 17. 

God loves beautiful things. His thoughts bloom 
in roses and Hlies and carnations and rhododendrons. 
Sometimes they blossom into wondrous beauty in 
a few hours after peeping out of the earth, as do the 
wild gardens on the edge of the glaciers in the' short 
mountain summer. And then again God broods over 
a plant for a hundred years before it bursts into 
bloom, as in the century plant. 

God's love of beauty speaks everywhere. His 
thoughts sparkle in dewdrops, and fall white in snow- 
storms, and glisten and dazzle in the sleet-covered 
forest, and are poured out in showers of gentle' rain. 
God's thoughts are in colors; they are gratefully 
green in the spring meadow, and magnificently 
golden in the ripened fields of summer ; they grow 
resplendent in the autumn — now russet, now yellow, 
and now crimson and scarlet. 

God's thoughts are graceful in form, whether it 
be manifest in the playfulness of the squirrels or in 
the flight of the birds. God's thoughts solidify into 
rocks, and rise loftily into mountain summits, and 

210 



The King's Jeivets 



211 



dive deep into the depths of the sea, and stretch far 
away across the rolHng waves. They Hft themselves 
into the far-off spaces, and fill the universe with stars 
and suns and rolling worlds. God's thoughts crystal- 
lize into veins of silver and gold, and into rare and 
precious stones — opal and garnet and topaz and 
sapphire and diamond. 

And we are assured that when God thinks of his 
children he thinks of them as the most precious and 
beautiful things which he has made — his own pe- 
culiar treasure, that which is dearer to him than any- 
thing else and which he would wear on his heart. 

Who are' these people that are so dear to God 
that he calls them his jewels? This is the description 
that is given of them. In a time of folly and wicked- 
ness, when many people were drawn away from God, 
and thought only of worldly things, there were' some 
that remained true : "Then they that feared the Lord 
spake often one to another : and the Lord hearkened, 
and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written 
before him for them that feared the Lord, and that 
thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, 
saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up 
my jewels ; and I will spare them, as a man spareth 
his own son that serveth him." 

You see there are no specially strange or marvel- 
ous or unusually heroic conditions attached, that 
would bar out any sincere soul seeking honestly to 
serve God and do his will. God feels this way about 
the people who love him enough to go to church as 
regularly as they can, with genuine purpose to keep 
in close touch and fellowship with other people' who 



212 



The Motherhood of God 



love him. They go there to pray and sing and com- 
mune with him, and the Lord hears it and knows 
about it, and somebody, it may be some angel, or 
possibly some ransomed and redeemed saint, is keep- 
ing a book of remembrance, and not a single sincere 
worshiper is left out of that book. 

Now what may we get from all this to comfort 
our hearts, and give us courage to go on our way 
rejoicing, doing our work more' bravely? In the 
first place, we may be sure that God loves us. 
Whether or no we understand all it means to be the 
jewel of God, we know that jewels are the' peculiar 
gifts of love, and we are sure that when God says 
we shall be his jewels in the immortal life he means 
to tell us that he loves us better than anything else 
in the universe. Isaiah caught a glimpse of this great 
love in the heart of God for his children who seek 
to do his will, and exclaimed, "I will greatly rejoice 
in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for 
he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he 
hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as 
a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and 
as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." Such 
a life Isaiah saw to be the dearest thing in the world 
to God. "Thou shalt also be," said he, "a crown of 
glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem 
in the hand of thy God." 

God sees this possibility of loveliness and of lov- 
ableness in all men. Many people who are not 
Christians in personal experience find it impossible 
to understand the spirit of Christian missions and the 
wisdom in sending missionaries to carry the Gospel 



The King^s Jewels 



213 



to heathen lands ; or to appreciate the motives of 
those in the college settlements and the Deaconess 
homes — mission workers who go down into the worst 
slums, or who in the prisons seek to bring blessing 
and comfort to criminals. These unfortunate men 
and women seem to the unchristian philosopher to 
be so utterly lost and so completely vile that it is the 
height of folly to waste wisdom and money and time 
in trying to bring them up to the plane of nobility 
and goodness. We should deal gently with such 
critics, for ignorance is at the bottom of it all. They 
have not seen the worth of humanity in itself. If 
they could see for one moment through the eyes of 
God into the human heart, they would know that 
there never was a man so low, in India, or China, or 
in the islands of the sea, but there were in him pos- 
sibilities of loveliness that would make him one of 
the King's jewels, the joy and the glor}^ of heaven. 

''What dirty, dreadful, disgusting stuff!" ex- 
claimed a man who was walking with Ruskin in Lon- 
don, and was speaking of the mud of the London 
streets. John Ruskin laid his hand upon the arm of 
his companion and said : ''Hold, my friend ; not so 
dreadful after all. What are the elements of this 
mud ? First, there is sand ; but when its particle's are 
crystallized according to the law of its nature, what 
is nicer than clean, white sand? And when that 
which enters into it is arranged according to a still 
higher law, we have the matchless opal. What else' 
have we in this mud?" continued Ruskin. "Clay. 
And the materials of clay, when the particles arc 
arranged according to their higher laws, make the' 



214 



The Motherhood of God 



brilliant sapphire. What other ingredients enter into 
the London mud ? Soot. And soot in its crystallized 
perfection forms the diamond. There is but one 
other — water. And water, when distilled according 
to the higher law of its nature, forms the dewdrop. 
resting in exquisite perfection in the heart of the 
rose. So," continued Ruskin, "in the muddy, lost soul 
of man is hidden the image' of his Creator ; and God 
will do his best to find his opals, his sapphires, his 
diamonds, and dewdrops." 

We may be sure from the figure used in our text 
that there is nothing so valuable or so beautiful in 
the eye of God as simple' goodness and sincere and 
honest worship. Some people are bewildered with 
the false idea that sin is more beautiful and attractive, 
has more charm about it, than goodness. It is true' 
that there may be that which is more dazzling to the 
eye jaundiced by evil in a career of folly and selfish- 
ness, but the' permanent charm and that which will 
continue to satisfy with no sting of regret is all in 
simple, honest goodness. Goodness often wears in 
this world very humble garments, but in the glory of 
heaven it will shine more resplendent than anything 
else. Last summer it became necessary to take 
eight million dollars in cash from a certain banking- 
house in New York, carry the money through the' 
streets of that city, and deliver it to the City Comp- 
troller. The bills, from twenty-dollar to one-thou- 
sand-dollar notes, were sorted and tied up with red 
tape' in million-dollar packages, and were put into a 
cheap-looking, common valise of bluish canvas with 
yellow leather trimmings. One of the bankers then 



The King^s Je<wels 215 



closed the spring-lock and summoned two of the 
firm's messengers and the porter. They went 
through the building to where the cabs had been 
ordered, and there the banker got into the middle 
cab with the bag full of wealth, and nine of the firm's 
employees preceded or followed in the other cabs. 
The money was paid over in safety, and the banker 
in speaking of it afterwards, said, *'Of all the people 
I met, not one looked at the' bag of money." So 
goodness sometimes goes about in a quiet, homely 
dress that attracts no particular attention, but God 
never loses sight of it as his peculiar treasure, and 
to him there is no charm in all the brilliancy and dash 
and show of the world compared to the' preciousness 
and beauty of the humble and sincere heart that does 
his will out of love. 

I am sure that our study this morning, if the 
Holy Spirit shall rightly impress its message on our 
hearts, will make us very sensitive' in our feelings 
concerning the care we ought to take of these jewels 
of God. If my character is a matter of great im- 
portance to the King of kings, if my failure to do 
right is a disappointment to God, if an evil spot in 
my soul is the deepest hurt that can be given to the 
heart of my Heavenly Father, then how careful I 
ought to be to do right, to be true ; to die rather than 
disappoint God. 

And I am sure also that if there is in any of our 
hearts a sad feeling that we have in some way been 
a disappointment to God, that we have failed to do 
the good we ought to do, or have neglected the op- 
portunity of serving him with the earnestness that 



2l6 



TTie Motherhood of God 



was our privilege, or by self-indulgence or evil asso- 
ciations have marred the jewel that was so precious 
to God, there will be great tenderness in our hearts, 
and I pray God there may be a deep longing that this 
jewel, this rare treasure committed to us, may be 
given up again to be cleansed and polished and made 
just what he would have it to be. 

There has been great excitement this last summer 
around the' Island of Corfu, where the late Empress 
Elizabeth of Austria kept up a magnificent establish- 
ment for many years. The whole population have 
turned pearl-fishers. They are searching for one of 
the greatest treasures of the Imperial House of Haps- 
burg, her late Majesty's necklace, which Francis 
Joseph hung about Elizabeth's neck on a glorious 
April day in 1854 when he called her his bride. The 
Emperor had ransacked his crown treasury to collect 
material for this imparalleled necklace, but though 
his cofifers were well filled with the inheritance of a 
long line of splendor-loving ancestors, it took a 
round million florins in cash to complete the string, 
of which each gem was the exact counterpart of every 
other in silvery whiteness, smoothness, and wondrous 
iridescence. And this necklace is lying somewhere 
on the bottom of the channel of Corfu in the Ionian 
Sea, where the Empress herself deposited it. 

The' story of this lost necklace is very interesting. 
Elizabeth was very proud of this necklace of pearls, 
and wore it constantly. She derived much satisfac- 
tion from the fact that it seemed impossible to dupli- 
cate her treasure, for though the Czarina of Russia 
and Queen Victoria and dozens of lesser queens gave 



77ie King^s Jewels 



217 



their jewelers carte blanche, these gentlemen sooner 
or later had to acknowledge their inability to match 
Elizabeth's wonderful pearls. Finally, in 1889, the 
Empress fell ill, so ill that for a long time her Hfe 
was despaired of. Francis Joseph knew that if his 
wife was to recover, her fairy castle in Corfu was the 
place for her to find new Hfe. The sufifering Empress 
was brought to the beautiful islands with all haste. 
There for many weeks she hovered between life and 
death, but at last slowly began to recover. When she 
got up for the first time' and sat before her mirror 
to have her hair dressed, a single look in the glass 
made her shiver and clutch her throat. Two doctors 
were immediately summoned, but on their arrival 
they found the Empre'ss herself again. 

''It was nothing," she said, ''only a sudden thought 
that struck me and made me lose control of myself." 

As a matter of fact, Her Majesty had caught 
sight of the pearl necklace that she had worn night 
and day during the entire course of her illness, and 
its condition had frightened her. The gems them- 
selves were unhurt, not a single one was broken, but 
their luster and whiteness were entirely gone. They 
looked gray, foggy, dull, like the eyes of death. 

The Empress had read in some scientific work 
that pearls, having lost their luster through age or 
other influences, may be given back their natural iri- 
descence by exposure to the play of the ocean's 
waves. Consequently she had a casket constructed, 
with chain, anchor, and locket attached. The casket 
was of iron, lined with silver, and perforated through- 
out with holes like a sieve. In this casket Elizabeth 



2i8 The Motherhood of God 



deposited her pearls, and the jewel-casket was 
anchored in the sea and fastened to a rock. Two 
years later she caused the casket to be raised, and 
finding the pearls unimproved, anchored the precious 
casket in another place, the secret of which seems to 
have died with her, and unless it is found the world 
will not know whether the scientists were right or 
not in their advice. 

But whether or not it be true that there' is power 
in the ocean's waves to bring back the beauty and 
iridescence to pearls that have become dulled and 
diseased, it is true that there is in the heart of God 
the ability to cleanse his own jewels which have lost 
their beauty and their glory, and have become con- 
taminated by evil associations. That is the great 
message I bring you. O heart that has grown 
worldly, the jewel of whose character has been dulled 
by rubbing against selfishness and greed ! O heart 
that has grown sick and faint in associations with 
unholy thoughts and evil deeds, until the jewel of the 
soul has lost its iridescence and its beauty ! Hear 
the message which I bring! God has not cast you 
off ; though you have fallen into the mud, though you 
have been held in the clutches of sin, though you have 
even been worn to adorn the evil, God has not cast 
3^ou away. Even now he is seeking after you with 
infinite tenderness and love. And if you will but give 
yourself up to him again with a new purpose of heart, 
he will cleanse your thoughts, he will purify your im- 
agination, he will polish you with infinite skill, and 
will wear you at last, through all eternity, as one of 
his precious jewels. 



XXV 

The Conquest of Our Faults 

"Now unto him that is able to keep you from falHng, and to pre- 
sent you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to 
the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and 
power, both now and ever." — ^Jude 24, 25. 

Nothing is more in evidence in this world than 
the frail and perishable quality of the things with 
which we have to do. How many there are' in these 
days who are ready to cry out with Jeremiah : Woe 
is me for my hurt ! my wound is grievous : but I said, 
Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it. My taber- 
nacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my 
children are' gone forth of me, and they are not : there 
is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set 
up my curtains." How easily is the tent of life de- 
stroyed ! 

Victor Hugo tells of a wonderful tent that was 
given to Napoleon by the Sultan Selim. From the 
outside it appeared like an ordinary tent, remarkable 
only for having in the canvas little windows, of which 
the frames were of rope ; three windows on each side. 
The inside was superb : the visitor found himself 
inside a great chest of gold brocade ; upon this 
brocade were flowers and a thousand fancy devices. 
On looking closely at the cords of the windows one 

219 



220 



The Motherhood of God 



discovered that they were of the most magnificent 
gold and silver lace ; each window had its awning of 
gold brocade ; the lining of the tent was of silk, with 
large red and blue stripes. Hugo says, "If I had 
been Napoleon, I should have liked to place my iron 
bed in this tent of gold and flowers, and to sleep in 
it on the eve of Wagram, Jena, and Friedland." Yet 
there came a Waterloo, in which Napoleon's glorious 
tent went to pieces in the storm. All his genius and 
marvelous force could not keep it from falHng. But 
Jude says that there is one who is able to keep us 
from falling, and that in the highest and noblest sense. 

One of the most common fears that make men 
hesitate about beginning the Christian life is the fear 
of falling by the wayside'. Many a man has said to 
me, "If I was sure I could hold out faithful, and do 
my duty by Christ and the Church for the rest of my 
life, I would confess Christ at once." But the fear 
of failure holds many a man back. If there be any 
such that hear me, I want to press home on your 
heart these strong words of Jude. In this doxology, 
Jude declares that Christ is able to keep us from 
falling. You may say, "Yet I have seen many start 
who did not abide faithful, but fell into grievous sin." 
Yes, but those very people would have been the first 
to admit that it was not because Christ was not will- 
ing, or was not able, to keep them from falling, that 
they stumbled ; but because they took themselves out 
of his guidance and direction. There is not a poor 
backslider in this city but will admit that as long as 
he was faithful to Jesus Christ, Christ was able to 



The Conquest of Oar Faults 221 



keep him from falling. A man can be placed in no 
circumstance's so hard but that Christ is able to com- 
fort his soul and give him courage and bring him off 
triumphant. 

I was greatly impressed the other day with a little 
story of the fidelity of a Christian soldier. A dozen 
rough soldiers were playing cards one night in the 
camp. 

"What on earth is that?" suddenly exclaimed the 
ringleader, as he stopped in the midst of the game 
to listen. 

In a moment the squad were listening to a low, 
solemn voice which came from a tent occupied by 
several recruits who had arrived in camp that day. 
The ringleader approached the tent on tiptoe. 

''Boys, he 's praying !" he roared out. 

"Three' cheers for the parson !" shouted another 
man of the group, as the prayer ended. 

"You watch. I '11 show you how to take the re- 
ligion out of him," said the first speaker, who was the 
ringleader in the mischief. 

The recruit was a slight, pale'-faced fellow of about 
eighteen years of age. During the next three weeks 
he was the butt of the camp. Then the regiment 
broke camp and engaged in a terrible battle. The 
company to which the young recruit belonged had 
a desperate' struggle. The brigade was driven back, 
and when the line was re-formed behind the breast- 
works they had built in the morning he was missing 
from the ranks. When last seen he was almost sur- 
rounded by enemies, but fighting desperately. At 
15 



222 



The Motherhood of God 



his side stood the brave fellow who had made the 
poor lad a constant object of ridicule. Both were 
given up as lost. 

Suddenly the big man was seen tramping through 
the underbrush, bearing the' dead body of the re- 
cruit. Reverently he laid the corpse down, saying, 
as he wiped the blood from his own face, ''I could n't 
leave him — he fought so. I thought he deserved a 
decent burial." 

During a lull in the battle the men dug a shallow 
grave, and tenderly laid the remains therein. Then, 
as one was cutting the name and regiment upon a 
board, the big man said, with a husky voice : ''You 'd 
better put the words 'Christian soldier' in some- 
where. He deserves the title, and maybe it '11 console 
him for our abuse." 

There was not a dry eye among these rough men 
as they stuck the rudely-carved board at the head of 
the grave, and again and again looked at the in- 
scription. 

"Well," said one, "he was a Christian soldier if 
ever there was one. And/' turning to the ring- 
leader, "he did n't run, did he, when he smelt gun- 
powder ?" 

"Run !" answered the big man, his voice tender 
with emotion ; "why, he did n't budge an inch. But 
what 's that to standing our fire like a man for weeks, 
never sending a word back? He just stood by his 
flag, and let us pepper him — he did." 

When the regiment marched away, that rude 
headboard remained to tell what a power lies in a 
Christian life. 



The Conquest of Oar Faults 



223 



Christ is able not only to keep us from falling, 
but he is able to make conquest of our faults. He 
has not only power to forgive us the sins that are 
past, but he' is able to cleanse our hearts from the evil 
imaginations out of which sin grows. We are never 
safe from the probability of faults unless the heart 
is pure in the sight of God. Dr. Peabody, in one 
of his talks to the' students at Harvard College, 
says that "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they 
shall see God," is the highest and deepest proposi- 
tion that ever fell from human lips. Without the 
least argument or reasoning about it, as a thing 
that is perfectly self-evident, Jesus announces that 
purity of heart leads to the knowledge of God. We 
banish our faults when we see God clearly; but we 
can not have clear spiritual insight unless our hearts 
are pure. The perfect knowledge of God is to be 
attained only by the perfectly-consecrated life. The 
human soul is a mirror on which the light of God 
shines ; and only the pure mirror reflects the per- 
fect image. We can only have real peace when we 
are sure that God is directing and supporting us 
in all the perplexing experiences of life ; and we 
can not have that certainty unless our hearts are 
pure, for it is only the pure heart that can see' God. 
The glorious promise of Christ is that if we confess 
our sins, he is faithful and just, not only to forgive 
us our sins, but also to cleanse us from all unright- 
eousness. 

Men have always been trying to get rid of their 
faults by shallow methods. But such methods al- 
ways fail. Christ says that a bitter fountain can 



The Motherhood of God 



not send out sweet water. A thorn-tree will not bear 
grapes. A thistle-plant will not yield figs. And 
so it is with us. Our faults are the sharp spikes 
of the thistle ; they are the useless fruit and the pierc- 
ing thorns of the wild tree ; they are the bitter dregs 
that come' from a bitter fountain. If our faults are 
to be vanquished, we must begin at the heart. The 
very sap that runs out to the remotest twig of our 
lives must be changed. The whole spirit of life 
must be transformed. That is what Paul means 
when he says that when a man becomes a Christian 
he is made a "new creature in Christ Jesus." 

I am sure there are some here who would like 
to get rid of their faults. In some degree your heart 
has been changed. Many of your faults have been 
vanquished. But ever and anon, in some hour of 
emergency and temptation, bitter waters come forth 
that make you know that the fountain is not right 
yet. Ever and anon the sharp spikes of the thistle 
and the thorn stick into your neighbors, and you 
feel sad and despairing for fear the old nature is 
still dominant. What shall you do ? Give your- 
selves completel}^ up into the hands of Jesus Christ, 
who is able not only to keep you from falling, but 
to take away all these blemishes, and present you 
finally without one ugly temper, without one un- 
clean thought, without one impure imagination, 
without one greedy purpose, before the throne of 
God. O how precious would be this life if every 
one in this church, beginning with the' pulpit and 
ending with the last probationer who has come in, 
would surrender himself or herself completely into 



TJie Conquest of Oar FauUs 



225 



the hands of Jesus Christ to do his will, to do just 
what he wants us to do, to be mastered by him, to 
let him take away all our faults — the faults that we 
are half proud of as well as those of which we are 
ashamed. The Hght would shine out from this 
church so that all the city would feel its power, and 
multitudes, seeing the light, would glorify God unto 
their own salvation! 

Mrs. Herrick Johnson has been studying this 
Scripture until it has aroused a song in her heart 
which has been very precious to my own soul; and 
I can but believe it will be a blessing to yours. 

Faultless in His glory's presence!' 
All the soul within me stirred, 
All my heart reached up to heaven 
At the wonder of that word. 

*Able to present /ne faultless? 

Lord, forgive my doubt,' I cried; 
* Thou didst once, to loving doubt, show 

Hands and feet, and riven side. 

' O, for me build up some ladder, 

Bright with golden round on round. 
That my hope this word may compass 

Reaching faith's high vantage ground!' 

Praying thus, behold my ladder, 

Reaching unto perfect day, 
Grew from out a simple story 

Dropped by some one in the way. 

Once a queen — so ran the story — 

Seeking far for something new. 
Found it in a mill, where, strangely, 

Naught but rags repaid her view. 



226 



The Motherhood of God 



Rags from out the very gutters, 

Rags of every shape and hue. 
While the squalid children, picking. 

Seemed but rags from hair to shoe. 

*\Miat tlien," rang her eager question, 
'Can you do with things so vile?' 

* Mold them into perfect whiteness,' 
Said the master with a smile. 

*^^^liteness?' quoth the queen, half doubting; 

' But these reddest, crimson dyes — 
Surely naught can ever whiten 

These to fitness in your eyes?' 

'Yes,' he said, 'though these are colors 

Hardest to remove of all. 
Still I have the power to make them 

Like the snowflake in its fall.' 

Through my heart the words so simple 

Throbbed with echo in and out ; 
' Crimson ' — ' scarlet ' — ' white as snowflake ' — 

Can this man, and can God not/ 

Now upon a day thereafter 

(Thus the tale went on at will). 
To the queen diere came a present 

From the master at the mill. 

Fold on fold of fairest texture, 

Lay the paper, purest white ; 
On each sheet there gleamed the letters 

Of her name in golden light. 

'Precious lesson,' wrote the master, 

* Hath my mill thus given me, 
Showing how our Christ can gather 

Vilest hearts from land or sea ; 



The Conquest of Our FauUs 

'In some heavenly alembic, 

Snowy white from crimson bring, 

Stamp his name on each, and bear them 
To the place of the King.' 

* -5$- -X- ^ 

O, what wondrous vision wrapped me ! 

Heaven's gates seemed open wide ! 
Even I stood clear and faultless. 

Close beneath the pierced side. 

Faultless in His glory's presence! 

Faultless in that dazzling light ! 
Christ's own love, majestic, tender, 

Made my crimson snowy white!" 



XXVI 



Renewing the Youth of the Soul 

"But be ye transformed by the renewnng of j'our mind." — Romans 

XII, 2. 

When Jesus Christ took Peter and James and 
John and went up on the mountain and was so 
transfig'ured before them that the glory of his Di- 
vinity shone out and enveloped him in a splendor 
before which his friends fell to the earth, the same 
word was used that we have used here to indicate 
the new Hfe which comes to the Christian. It is 
a transfiguration of this present life into something 
beautiful and glorious. It is termed by Paul a re- 
newal of the mind ; and we may be sure that the 
beginning of Christianity as an incarnation in our 
lives is the renewing within us of the right thought 
about God and our relation to him. 

A recent writer, speaking of the molding influ- 
ence of our thoughts, quotes Victor Hugo as say- 
ing, "There are moments when, whatever the atti- 
tude of the body, the soul is on its knees." The 
beginning of true religion is that kind of thought 
about God and ourselves which puts the soul upon 
its knees before the mercy-seat. The Bible sets 
forth very clearly that sin causes our mind and heart 

228 



Rene<wmff the Youth of the Soul 229 

to be' unsightly vessels, filled with unclean and poi- 
sonous matter that breeds only decay and death, 
and it is the power, the miracle of Christianity that 
it is able to transform our minds until they become 
instead beautiful jewel-cases that will gladden the 
eye and rejoice the heart of all who behold them. 

No greater blunder can be made' than for a man 
to undertake' to become a Christian by simply apply- 
ing himself to live outwardly in obedience to Chris- 
tian standards without first seeking by God's grace 
the renewing of the mind. The Word of God de- 
clares of a man that "as he thinketh in his heart, 
so is he'." And Thackeray gives us the same truth 
in other words when he says, "The key to every man 
is his thought." Christ transforms men by giving 
them new thoughts. Here is a man whose mind 
has been full of thoughts connected with appetite 
and passion, his imagination toying with evil pic- 
tures, who comes suddenly or gradually into the 
presence of Jesus Christ and has unfolded to his 
mind this new and wonderful idea of life until he 
is fascinated by it. He thinks new thoughts, not 
because he' is standing guard and determined not 
to think the old ones, but because the new thoughts 
have taken possession of him and turned his mind 
working in another direction. 

Some one writing in one of our magazines de- 
clares that the usual way that people set about 
stopping worry is the wrong one, and that that is 
the reason it is so unsuccessful. If a doctor tells 
a patient he must stop worrjang, the patient is likely 
to say, impatiently: "O doctor, do n't I wish that I 



230 The Motherhood of God 



could ! But I can't. If I could have stopped worry- 
ing a year ago I would not be ill now !" All of which 
is perfectly true. And the doctor does not always 
know how to help him, because both doctor and 
patient have an idea that it is possible to repress 
worry through an efifort of the will. This is a mis- 
take'. It is not possible to repress worry. You 
must replace it with something else. Suppose you 
were to go into a completely dark room, wishing 
it to be light. How would you set about the work? 
Would you try to scoop the darkness up in buckets 
and carry it out at the door? No, indeed. You 
would just open the windows and shutters and let 
in the sunlight. You would replace the darkness 
with light. So it is with worry. The only possible 
way to get rid of it is to replace the worrying atti- 
tude of mind with the positive attitude of confidence 
and action, which will fill up the thought and time 
in other ways. 

It is the same way with sin. A man can not come 
into his polluted heart and shovel out the evil imagi- 
nations, the unclean thoughts, the miserly purposes, 
the rebellious feelings which he' finds there. No ; 
he must throw up the shutters and let in the sun- 
light of Jesus Christ. The mind must be renewed, 
not by any artificial process, but by the cleansing 
power of this new thought, this new love that comes 
to him in the presence of Christ. 

Some one has well said that no man can paint a 
picture of the Christ while thinking of the devil. 
All the sweetness, the majesty, the love that made 
that face too beautiful for human hands ever to re- 



Renewing the Youth of the Sout 231 

produce perfectly upon any canvas, would be dis- 
figured by the thought conveying such a different 
idea to the brain and remaining there while' the hands 
fashioned the mind's ideal. 

Some of you remember with great joy the trans- 
formation that came to you in the renewing of your 
mind when your life' was flooded with the new bright- 
ness and glory that came when Christ first shone 
clear upon your Hfe. To others the Christian Hfe, 
the development of the soul, kept pace with the' 
opening and blossoming of physical power. You 
were so hedged about by Christian influences, and 
you were led on so gently from childhood's first 
innocent confidence in God, that you have no such 
memory of transformation; but you have the same 
joy of the renewed life, the evergreen Hfe, constantly 
refreshed by fellowship and communion with God. 
Let us never worry how we got into the kingdom 
if we are there. The gospel brings peace to those 
that are far off as well as to those that are nigh, 
but it is a blessed thing to keep childhood nigh to 
God. 

Canon Shore says he once' saw lying side by side 
in a great workshop two heads made of metal. The 
one was perfect : all the features of a noble, manly 
face came out clear and distinct in their lines of 
strength and beauty. In the other scarcely a single' 
feature could be recognized. It was all marred and 
spoiled. "The metal had been let go a little too 
cool, sir," said the man who was showing it to him. 

How often that is illustrated in working upon 
forms more precious than any earthly metal ! How 



The Motherhood of God 



many we see who might have been stamped with the 
perfect image and superscription of the King of 
kings if they had been put into the mint while warm 
with the love and glow of early youth; but because 
they were neglected so long, in later years the writ- 
ing is blurred and the image marred. 

If we live in a thoroughly renewed attitude of 
mind, it must surely change our thoughts about 
the sorrows and trials of life, greatly to our com- 
fort. What a wonderful promise Christ made to the 
disciples before going away from them, ''Ye shall 
be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into 
joy." That is, their sorrow should be transformed; 
a light from the other world should shine on it until 
they should find hidden in it a great joy. Phillips 
Brooks, commenting on this, declares that it must 
be somewhere in the grief that the Christian's help 
of the grief is hidden. It m.ust be in some discovery 
of the Divine side of the sorrow that the consolation 
of the sorrow will be found. It is, indeed, a trans- 
formation which comes over any man or woman 
when he or she stops asking of distress, "How can 
I throw this off?" and asks instead, ''What did God 
mean by sending this?" 

When a man can face his trials, honestly seeking 
to find the joy that God has hidden in them, he may 
well believe that time' and work will help him. Time, 
with its necessary calming of the first wild surface 
tumult, will let him look deeper and ever deeper 
into the Divine purpose of sorrow, will let its deep- 
est and most precious meanings gradually come 
forth so that he may see them. Work done in the 



Renewing ihe Youth of the Soul 



233 



sorrow will bring him into ever new relation to the 
God in whom alone the full interpretation and relief 
of the sorrow lies. Time and work, not as a means 
of escape from distress, but as the hands in which 
distress shall be turned hither and thither, that the 
light of God may freely play upon it ; time and work 
so acting as servants of God, not as substitutes for 
God, are full of unspeakably precious ministries for 
the suffering soul. But the real relief, the only final 
comfort, is God; and he relieves the soul always 
in its suffering by the new knowledge and possession 
of himself which could only come through that at- 
mosphere of pain. 

There is something very inspiring and beautiful 
in the thought that pain and trial need not make' the 
soul narrow and little; but if we live in this re 
newed life of fellowship with Christ they will make 
the soul larger and more splendid. Myra Goodwin 
Plantz sings this truth with great beauty in her 
poem about "Answered Prayer:" 

*'I asked for bread : God gave me a stone instead ; 
» Yet while I pillowed there my weary head, 
The angels made a ladder of my dreams, 
WTiich upward to celestial mountains led. 

And when I awoke, beneath the morning's beams, 
Around my resting-place fresh manna lay ; 
And, praising God, I went upon my way, 

For I was fed. 
I asked for strength : for with the noontide heat 
I fainted, while the reapers, singing sweet, 

Went forward with ripe sheaves T could not bear. 
Tlien came the Master, with his blood-stained feet, 

And lifted me with sympathetic care. 
Then on his arm I leaned till all was done ; 
And I stood with the rest at set of sun. 
My task complete. 



234 



The Motherhood of God 



I asked for light : around me closed the night, 
Nor guiding star met my bewildered sight, 

For storm-clouds gathered in a tempest near. 
Yet, in the lightning's blazing, roaring flight 

I saw the way before me straight and clear. 
What though his leading pillar was of fire, 
And not the sunbeam of my heart's desire? 
My path was bright. 

God answers prayer : sometimes, when hearts are weak, 
He gives the very gifts believers seek. 

But often faith must learn a deeper rest. 
And trust God' s silence when he does not speak ; 

For he, whose name is Love, will send the best. 
Stars may burn out, nor mountain walls endure, 
But God is true, his promises are sure 
To those who seek." 

If we live this life of ever-renewed and vital fel- 
lowship with Christ, we shall live a life of confidence 
and faith. And it is only from that standpoint of 
childlike faith that we get a point of view that will 
save us from the frights and terrors that come to 
those who are conformed to this world. A traveler 
tells how several people were looking out of the 
window of a swiftly-moving train, when one of them 
cried, "O, see that bear sitting there by the stone- 
heap," and they all looked and saw the bear. The 
train went on. As they drew near, another said, "It 
is not a bear, but a big dog;" and they all looked 
and saw the big dog. The train went on. And as 
it swept past, they looked back, and all said, "Why, 
it is only a stump." It was a stump. 

We have been passing through a time like that 
in the criticism of scholars in regard to the Bible. 
And a great many who have seen only with their 



Rene<wing the Youth of the Soul 235 

heads have seen bears and big dogs and dangerous 
enemies to God's Holy Word. But there is one 
class of men and women in the world who have 
not been disturbed — the' class who, with renewed 
minds, have walked in fellowship with Jesus Christ 
and have known that, whatever proved true concern- 
ing the Biblical record, the "Word of God" should 
live and abide in their hearts forever. 

One of the most remarkable Christian men who 
ever lived was Livingstone, the discoverer and mis- 
sionary. In the darkest complication of evils and 
troubles he was always confident that all would 
come right at last. In 1856, at the confluence of 
the rivers Loangwa and Zambesi, the neighboring 
tribes seemed bent on arresting his progress. Their 
preparations for battle seemed to indicate that the 
next day would be Livingstone's last. For awhile 
he was greatly troubled, not on his personal ac- 
count, but because all he had discovered about the 
structure of the continent and all that he had 
planned for the future would be' lost to the world. 
But he opened his Bible and read, 'Xo, I am with 
you alway, even unto the end of the world." "It 
is the word of a gentleman," Livingstone said, "a 
gentleman of the most sacred and strictest honor." 
His fluttering heart was thenceforth calmed. The 
project of stealing away furtively by night that had 
previously been thought of was abandoned. He 
went about his observations for latitude and longi- 
tude as carefully as usual. Next day the enemy al- 
lowed him to leave without the slightest molestation. 
And all through life his trust was the' same. 



236 



The Motherhood of God 



One of the noblest men the American navy has 
ever known was David Farragut. Before going 
into the battle of Mobile he wrote a letter to his 
jvife, in which he says: "I am going into Mobile 
Bay in the morning. If God is my Leader — and I 
hope he is, and in him I place my trust — if he 
thinks it is the proper place for me to die, I am ready 
to submit to his will in that as in all other things." 
Such a faith as that can only spring from a living, 
vital, evergreen fellowship with the Highest. 

How infinitely superior is this ever-renewed life — 
a life in which faith and enthusiasm and peace are 
ever refreshed at the heart-spring of the universe — 
to any life which depends simply on outward adorn- 
ment and endowment. Emma Lazarus sings of the 
failure which has come to the great world-races who 
sought to enrich their manhood fromi the outside: 

♦"O World-God, give me wealth !' the Eg>-ptian cried. 

His prayer was granted. High as heaven, behold 
Palace and pyramid ; the brimming tide 

Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold. 
Armies of slaves toiled ant- wise at his feet, 

World -circling traffic roared through mart and street. 
His priests were gods, his spice-balmed kings, enshrined, 

Set death at naught in rock-ribbed chamels deep. 
Seek Pharaoh's race to-day, and ye shall find 

Rust and the moth, silence and dusty sleep. 

* O World-God, give me beauty !' cried the Greek. 

His prayer was granted. All the earth became 
Plastic and vocal to his sense ; each peak, 

Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean flame, 
Peopled the world with imaged gi-ace and light. 

The lyre was his, and his the breathing might 



Renewing the Youth of the Soul 237 

Of the immortal marble, his the play 

Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue. 

Go seek the sunshine-race, ye find to-day 
A broken column and a lute unstrung. 

* O World-God, give me power !' the Roman cried. 

His prayer was granted. The vast world was chained 
A captive to the chariot of his pride, 

The blood of myriad provinces was drained 
To feed that fierce, insatiable red heart. 

Invulnerably bulwarked every part 
With serried legions and with close-meshed code ; 

Within, the burrowing worm had gnawed its home. 
A roofless ruin stands where once abode 

The imperial race of everlasting Rome." 

These three' great illustrations ought to be 
enough to warn all people through all time. Man 
is to be made great and rich and beautiful, not 
from the outside, but from within. The robing-room 
of the soul is within. And so I come to you 
with the appeal which Paul made to Rome when she 
was athirst for power — an appeal which is just as 
appropriate' to us in this rushing, materialistic age in 
which we live. And I pray God that the Holy Spirit 
may bring home to all our hearts with Divine force 
the message, "Be not conformed to this world; but 
be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, 
that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, 
and perfect, will of God." 
16 



XXVII 



The Tug at the Oars 

"And he saw them toihng in ro\\dng." — ISIark yi, 48. 

One of our modern wits has written a book 
entitled, "Three Men in a Boat." But in this case 
we have a whole Church in a boat. Christ had sent 
all his little flock away in a boat while he gave the 
parting word to the multitude which had followed 
him out into the wilderness and which he had there 
met with welcome and generous provision. Christ 
had been weary when he went into the wilderness, 
and had retired there hoping for a little vacation 
from the constant burden of his work ; and we may 
well beHeve that now, after the day's heavy nervous 
strain upon him, his body was completely tired out. 
But Christ had one place to which he always went 
for rest — a place which never failed him — and that 
was secret prayer. And so when that crowd -with- 
out a shepherd had gone away for the night, Jesus 
took himself up into the mountain to pray. There, 
in communion with God, his weary body and bur- 
dened heart found rest. 

In the meantime that little nucleus of the Chris- 
tian Church, the personal friends of Jesus, who had 

238 



The Tug ai the Oars 



239 



gone out in the boat at his word, had come into 
serious perplexity. The wind came up with the 
night, and as they undertook to row back to where 
they had left Jesus in order to take him on board, 
they found the wind contrary to them, and so strong 
was it that they not only found it hard to make 
headway against it, but were in great danger of 
being capsized and drowned. 

I want to follow this little story as suggesting 
the conditions surrounding the Christian Church in 
our own time. We, too, are' out in a boat, making 
our struggle at the command of Christ. Every ear- 
nest Christian and every earnest Christian Church 
will find that there is not only demand for rowing, 
but that mostly we shall row against the wind in 
our Christian work in this wicked world. The 
Church that rows with the wind, and has' no oppo- 
sition, is certainly not doing the work which the 
Lord wants done in the world. Christ's mission 
in the world is to destroy the works of the devil ; and 
when you begin to cast out devils, you may de- 
pend upon it that you will have committees from the 
Pork Trust of to-day, as Christ did from Gadara 
when the herds of swine went into the sea. T never 
envy a preacher or a Church that is popular v/itli 
saloons and gambling-hells and haunts of evil. I 
know that if Christ were here, he would not ])e 
popular with them. It is a crying shame' when 
Churches and saloons live side by side in good- 
humored amiability. You may depend upon it that a 
Church is not doing right, is not loyal to Christ, 



240 The Motherhood of God 



when there is a Hquor saloon in the same town or 
a gambHng-hell within the corporation with which 
it has no fight. 

So long as there is sin in the world, the Chris- 
tian Church must row against the' current ; and every 
man or woman in it will have the same experience. 
The moment a man tries to rise above his sin — his 
besetting sin — he will find the strength of the cur- 
rent against him. Sin is something more than guilt, 
more than evil habit — it is a fever in the very blood, 
a cancer of the heart. Paul describes it as "this body 
of death/' which he could not shake of¥, no matter 
how hard he shook himself. Who of us has not 
known Paul's experience, "When I would do good, 
evil is present with me?" That is. When I would 
row up the stream heavenward, the wind and cur- 
rent are strong enough to blow me back, no mat- 
ter how hard I tug at the oars. Some people' say 
that the difference in men and women is all a differ- 
ence of heredity, and if men had a new start it would 
be different. But they had a new start once, and 
it failed. Some of these scientists say, "If we could 
only begin afresh, if Ave could only take a few prime 
specimens of the race and begin again with them, 
we might educate them up into perfect righteousness 
and into noble service." And sometimes you hear 
preachers and rehgious teachers say almost the same 
thing. But that has been tried. An EngHsh 
preacher — Rev. Simpson Johnson — says that God 
tried this plan of the scientists at the time of the 
great flood. Wickedness had become great. God 
chose the' eight best specimens that there were in 



The Tug sd the Oars 



241 



the world at the time — the one God-fearing family. 
He put them in the ark, and all the rest were de- 
stroyed. Now is a chance for the scientists. The 
drunkenness and the idolatry and the abominations 
of the earth were drowned in water, and eight good 
people, constituting one family, were' left. The world 
will have a new start, and you may bring men up 
and train men up into a better life. But what was 
the result? The next generation of men was just 
as drunken and just as idolatrous as before ; and 
why? Because sin is in the depraved nature of man, 
and if left there it will blossom out into the life. 
Fire will not burn sin, water will not quench sin, and 
there is only one way to get rid of it : there is only 
one Person in the universe who can effectually deal 
with sin, and that is the Christ who died upon the 
cross for our sins, who rose again for our justifica- 
tion, and who ever liveth to make intercession for us. 

That little, first Christian Church in the boat 
found the storm too great for them without the 
presence of Christ. Alone, the wind was stronger 
than their oars. God has given man wonderful 
power over nature when he works in harmony with 
himself; but every once in a while he shows man — 
as he did the other day at Galveston, Texas — how 
utterly weak and helpless he is. Man can not meas- 
ure strength with God. 

On one occasion the great Napoleon arranged 
to review his fleet off Boulogne, Seeing a severe 
storm was impending, the admiral in command sent 
word to the Emperor, advising that the position of 
the ships should be altered. Napoleon demanded 



242 The Motherhood of God 

obedience to his first directions; and the officer 
obeyed. The storm burst in terrific violence. Sev- 
eral vessels were wrecked, over two hundred sol- 
diers and sailors were thrown into the fury of the 
sea, and but few escaped. The Emperor at once or- 
dered the boats out to rescue the drowning men, but 
he was told that no boat could live in such a sea. 
Then, in the strength of his determination, he or- 
dered a company of grenadiers to man his own boat, 
and springing into it, he exclaimed : ''Follow me, 
my brave fellows ! Push on ! Push on !" In vain 
the poor soldiers struggled at the oars. ''Push on !" 
cried Napoleon. "Do you not hear their cries. O 
this sea ! this sea ! It rebels against our power, but 
it may be conquered !" Scarcely had the words es- 
caped his lips when a mighty wave struck the boat 
and sent it and its occupants with terrible force high 
up to shore, leaving them like a stranded waif. Thus 
was the proud Napoleon taught his own weakness. 

So it was that the friends of Jesus battled against 
the waves that night. Tug as hard as they would, 
they made no headway. They thought they were 
unseen from the' shore and would be lost. But they 
were not unseen. Jesus was watching them. Ah ! 
there never was an eye' so clear as Christ's. The 
darkest night can not hide from him. "He saw 
them toiling in. rowing." Instantly his heart was 
filled with sympathy, and he went to their relief. 

Brethren, let us learn our lesson. To do the work 
God wants us to do in this Church we must row 
against the wind. All the sins of men and women, 
the old commonplace sins that have soiled and hurt 



The Tug ai the Oars 



243 



humanity from the beginning, together with all the 
modern adaptations of vice and wickedness, roll up 
in waves against the Church. We must row against 
this mighty tide. We can not win without Christ. 
We must have him still in our hearts ; we must have 
him in the boat with us. 

Christ watches over us as sympathetically and lov- 
ingly as he did over that little infant Church, and he' 
is as ready to come to us. When he comes, sin 
gives way and the devils flee. It is true of our 
individual sins, and it is true of our advance as a 
Church against the organized sins of society. 

If any man who hears me is having a hard pull 
against odds in the question of his own personal life, 
I want to assure him of Christ's willingness to come 
into the boat and give him victory over the storm. 
You remember the story of Christian in John Bun- 
yan's immortal book? Christian got through the 
narrow gate with the burden of sin pressing on his 
shoulders, and was directed to go up to a certain 
hill. He lifted up his eyes, and saw on the top of 
the hill a cross, and a man suspended on the cross. 
And the' book tells us that the moment he saw the 
man on the cross the burden loosed from oi¥ his 
shoulders and fell from off his back, and tumbled, and 
tumbled, and tumbled, and went into the sepulcher, 
and he saw it no more forever. And he wondered 
to look at that man who relieved him of his burdens, 
and as he wondered he wept, and as he wept three 
shining one's came to him. And the first said, "Your 
sins are all forgiven you." And the second stripped 
him of his ragged garments, and gave him milk- 



244 The Motherhood of God 

white robes for the Celestial City. And the third 
gave him a roll into his bosom, which he was to 
keep there'; for it was to be his passport when he 
reached the city gates. And so there is one hope for 
a man in his sin, if he struggle to be free from it 
and to overcome it; and that is to take Christ into 
the' boat of life with him. That man shall not only 
have the forgiveness of his sins, but he shall have 
a new character, he shall be a new creature in Christ 
Jesus, and he shall have blessed fellowship and com- 
munion with the' Son of God. 

Now, what happens to the individual shall also 
happen to the Church. All the troubles of the storm 
ended when Christ came to those tired and dis- 
couraged rowers. One came into the boat who had 
power over the sea ; One came who inspired their 
hearts with courage, and there was peace. Dear 
friends, we must have Christ in the boat with us ; 
and if we are to have him, then we must be willing 
to do our work in his spirit, and to do the work 
which he has to do. 

If we are to keep Christ with us in the boat, we 
must pull together. Did you ever see two people 
rowing when they did not keep stroke? The result 
was that the boat went round and round, or slant- 
wise, perhaps into danger of entanglement ; but no 
real advance was made. People rowing together in 
the same boat must keep stroke. Each must desire 
to go the same way, and they must pull together in 
harmony, with one purpose. So the only way we 
can work effectively in the Church is through intelli- 
gent and earnest co-operation. If a man is rowing 



The Tug at the Oars 245 



alone, he can row whichever way his fancy takes, 
and he may pull with a short stroke or a long stroke, 
as he sees fit ; but when a man rows with other people, 
he must take them into consideration. Now, one 
of the great things for us to learn when we come 
into the Christian Church is that we must seek to 
find a harmonious relation to our brothers and sis- 
ters in the work of the Church. There is only one 
possible way of harmony in the Church, and that 
is that all its members shall be so devoted to Jesus 
Christ, shall so love him and desire to serve him, 
that there shall be no room for personal selfishness 
to stir up strife. You can not carry on the Chris- 
tian Church in a worldly spirit. In so far as that 
spirit prevails in its members, there will be strife 
and discord and lack of advancement. O for a 
baptism of Divine love ! O for a vision of Christ 
as our Redeemer dying to save us, watching over us 
through the storm, loving us, brooding tenderly about 
us — a vision that shall melt our hearts and give us 
a new consecration to him, that shall so unite us that 
every oar will keep stroke, every heart will throb in 
sympathy, every voice will sing the song of praise 
unto our Divine Lord ! 

If we are to keep Christ in the' boat with us, we 
must do his work ; we must seek after the ship- 
wrecked ; we must hunt for the lost ; we must be' 
unselfish and loving in our service toward our fel- 
low-men. We know that that is Christ's great mis- 
sion among men. If there is somebody who has 
been cast adrift, some one clinging to a broken spar, 
with the waves of trouble and sin beating over his 



246 



The Motherhood of God 



head, Christ's sympathy is there, and our sympathy 
must be there, too, if Jesus is to be in the boat with 
us and pilot us. Around us are multitudes of men 
and women who are perishing in their sins. We can 
only have Christ's presence' and Christ's peace in 
our hearts and in our Church by seeking to save 
these lost souls. God never gives us Mounts of 
Transfiguration but for the purpose of giving us 
power to go down into the valleys of sin and among 
the multitudes of devil-tormented men and women 
to rescue them. The Church must hold itself in 
readiness; it must be alert; it must not be afraid 
of new things nor of daring advancement. The dis- 
ciples in their trouble were frightened Avhen they 
first saw Jesus coming on the waves. But Jesus 
said: "Be of good cheer; it is I ; be not afraid." So 
we are sometimes afraid when Christ comes to us 
with opportunities and privileges. Christ is coming 
to these great downtown Churches in our large cit- 
ies with opportunities for reaching careless and sin- 
ful men and women through aggressive evangelistic 
work. Brothers, sisters, we must not be above our 
business. We must not be too conservative, too 
dignified, to do the blessed work of throwing out 
the life-line to save the multitudes of lost men and 
women that throng these streets. Not only in the 
church itself, but in the street and in the business 
house, we must be ready to go with Jesus Christ to 
call mien to salvation. 

One night in summer, at the close of the service 
in a city church. Dr. IMunhall, the evangelist, said 
to the people, "I 'm going out here on the street to 



The Tug ai ihe Oars 



247 



preach to the people who have not come to the 
church." Most of the congregation went with him 
and gathered round to sing before he spoke. Then 
he preached a brief sermon on "God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- 
soever beUeveth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." His voice was very clear, and there 
was a light wind blowing so as to carry it in one 
direction a long distance'. Four or five times dur- 
ing the short sermon he repeated his text in a voice 
much louder than the rest of his discourse. Quite 
a distance away a rich banker was sitting out on 
his veranda alone. All at once', as coming from the 
sky, he heard distinctly, ''For God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." He had not heard a note of the 
singing nor a word of the sermon, and so was star- 
tled upon hearing the text. He sprang to his feet 
and looked above him and around him, and for some 
minutes paced around his veranda, wondering where 
it came from. And so five times he heard it, until 
the Spirit of God fastened the message upon his 
conscience. He slept none that night. The next 
morning he spoke of it at the breakfast-table. His 
oldest son was present at the meeting the night 
before on the street, and told his father about it. 
The banker went to his business, but was so troubled 
that he sent his son to Dr. Munhall at the hotel to 
beg him to come to his bank and see him. When 
the preacher came in, the banker frankly said he 
wanted to be' saved. Dr. Munhall opened to him the 



248 The Motherhood of God 



way of salvation ; and right there in his office, on a 
raised platform, where twenty clerks could see, the 
banker and the preacher knelt in prayer, and the 
man of business repented of his sins and gave his 
heart to Christ. Immediately upon rising from his 
knees, he stood up and clapped his hands to draw 
the attention of his astonished clerks and customers, 
and said: "I have just accepted Jesus Christ as my 
Savior and Lord, and he accepts me. I am, there- 
fore, a Christian, for which I praise God, and sin- 
cerely wish that all you who have not done so might 
do the same.'' 

Dear friends, that is the work the Christian 
Church must do if Christ is to be with us and we 
are to share his presence and rejoice in his peace. 



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